The Blackest of Abysmal Hyperbole

If you work for the Queensland Public Service, you’re lucky to be getting a pay cheque, and you know it, because the Premier has told you that. According to the Brisbane Times yesterday, Premier Newman

"…argued the state employed 20,000 more public servants than it could afford, following Friday’s report by the Peter Costello-led financial commission of audit."

Premier Newman’s slash and burn solution to the Labor Government’s economic legacy is to cut – cut – cut. I’ve lost track of the number of projects and programmes that have been seen funding cut or cancelled altogether. Underlying all of that has been the constant threat that public service jobs were in danger.

Peter Costello’s interim report on Queensland’s economic position was released last week, giving the government more certainty of their financial position. According to the report, the Queensland Government is employing 20,000 more public servants that it can afford to pay: not 20,000 public servants more than Queensland needs, just 20,000 more than we can afford. As of March 2012, Queensland had a little over 200,000 public servants. Apparently we can’t afford about 10% of them.

At this stage, the Premier says he is trying to protect those jobs, and warns public servants and their unions not to ask for pay rises.

So what’s the point? Why would the Premier be making big nasty noises with big nasty numbers, and scaring every single public servant in Queensland unless he’s trying to soften the ground in front of an even nastier announcement?

In fact, we didn’t have to wait for the next scary announcement.

"The Premier said the former government was paying for 20,000 full-time-equivalent public servants with debt and referred to the state as heading towards “the blackest of all black abysses” in regard to its financial position."

Black black black black blackity black.

On Monday, when Fairfax announced that it was terminating 1,900 employees, there was a lot of talk, possibly fuelled by the fact that the people whose jobs were threatened are the same people who bring us the news. In any case, 1,900 is a big number, and a genuine blow to the entire industry. I wouldn’t want to be studying journalism right now; it’s a shrinking market.

Twenty thousand is more than ten times bigger, but when it comes to jobs, it’s a concept many of us can’t comprehend. Twenty thousand is the entire population of Armidale, in New South Wales. Can you imagine an entire town – including kids, grandparents, part-time workers, and both staff and students at the University of New England – being told their jobs are under threat because we can’t afford to pay them?

So what are these jobs?

I doubt that it’s been decided, but we do know that the Queensland Public Service encompasses over 200,000 workers in a wide array of roles. The average wage for a Queensland Public Servant is around over $80,000. Multiply that across 20,000 full-time equivalent roles, and Mr Newman is talking about Queensland having to borrow $1.6 billion to meet its payroll for that 20,000 workers that he says we can’t afford.

But can we afford to do without those roles? The clichéd picture of a public servant is the desk-bound pencil pusher in a beige cardigan. The Queensland Public Service consists of jobs in Health, Education, Police, Justice, Economic Development, Environment, Museums and Galleries, Transport, Roads, and more, as well as the bureaucrats you’ve probably pictured. Details of the QPS Workforce are here. These people provide necessary services that we expect from our state government, and while it’s usually possible to find efficiencies and savings that allow an organisation to trim the headcount, there’s also a limit.

Cut past that point, and frontline service levels fall. For now, we might be talking about a few less back office bean counters that take longer to prepare reports for their middle-management bureaucrat bosses, but at some point, it starts to hurt. It starts to matter. I'd even argue that it's not a bad thing to have a little depth on the bench, a little wiggle room in the back office. It gives an organisation flexibility, which is what the Queensland Government needs most right now.

Premier Newman’s dire predictions that Queensland is sinking towards the inky depths of despair is undoubtedly alarmist, but what is his worst case scenario? Is it larger class sizes, longer hospital waiting lists, fewer police, dangerous roads? Is it rising unemployment (and $1.6b dollars less circulating through and stimulating  the Queensland economy)? Or is it simply a wages bill we still can’t afford to pay?

Frankly, the most acceptable of those options is the wages bill we can’t afford. Premier Newman must keep the state functioning, growing, while we work our way back out of debt. Protect those jobs at all costs. Don’t pay off the state debt to prove that you can, while the careers of Queensland public servants pile up in your blackest of black abysses.

Why Politicans Should Be Chameleons

Good news for Queensland Premier Campbell Newman and his inexperienced team of Ministers, MPs and advisors: You won. On March 24, there was a state election, and you won. You can stop campaigning now. You won.

The time for promising change, for impressing donors, for flattering supporters, for doing deals with lobbyists, for courting votes, kissing babies, shaking hands and smiling until your cheeks ache is over. You won. 

Here's the bad news: now, you have to govern. 

I know that governing was the point of the whole exercise, and that Mr Newman jumped right in on Day One announcing plans and looking busy, yet the LNP seems to be having trouble letting go of the campaigning. Perhaps being in Opposition for so long has left a legacy, a mentality that demands constant public positioning as the better alternative. Queensland believed them. The LNP won, so now it's time to stop trying to win.

For most governments, there's a window of opportunity when they can focus all of their energies on governing, and with a majority the size of Clive Palmer's ego, Campbell Newman's window is indeed panoramic. But when they confuse governing with campaigning, they undermine their own mandate, and end up looking petty.

Here's an example. Yesterday, the Minister for Outdoorsy Fun Stuff, Steven Dickson announced that they had "uncovered" more evidence of wasteful Labor Government spending in the form of a planned but as yet unbuilt $6m winter Olympics training facility at the Sleeman Sports Centre near Carindale. Sounds fair enough...except that the use of the word "uncovered" and the tone of the media release suggests that the wasteful spending had been hidden by a sneaky, inept Labor Government. 

But rather than being hidden, it was announced in early December 2010 by then Sports Minister Phil Reeves, and reported in the Courier Mail. Former Member for Chatsworth Steve Kilburn recalls being at two announcements about the facility. The real story is that the Newman Government has decided that the Sleeman Ski Jump training facility is an extravagance the state doesn't need and can't afford.

Mr Dickson is the Minister now; he gets to make those decisions, and with Premier’s Newman’s budget busting tactics, we know expenditure is being cut. We didn't need another barely disguised accusation of Labor's undisciplined spending; pointing it out now doesn't get him extra votes; his team already won.

But it's not the only example of continuous campaigning. Premier Newman's announcement last week that he was doing away with state-sanctioned civil partnership ceremonies was a direct appeal to Christian voters. He admitted it…but why do it? The majority of Australian are now in favour of same-sex marriage - ironically, it's about 64%, which is about the same percentage of Australians who self-identified as Christians in the 2006 Census.

Newman himself supports same sex marriage, so in changing the rules on same sex marriage, he is working against majority opinion, his own beliefs and existing legislation, to appease one lobby group that represents the minority position, but which has its hooks into the LNP....and he's already won the election. Premier Newman doesn’t need to appease anyone; he is now in a position where he can call the shots.

Perhaps this LNP groupthink is something they learned from the torturous 2010 Federal Election, which 22 months later, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is still trying to win. The situation is vastly different though. Premier Newman leads a record-breaking majority, while Mr Abbott has the slimmest possible margin separating him away from power. Why are they using similar strategies?

Just yesterday, Mr Abbott denied a pair which would have allowed federal Environment Minister Tony Burke to represent Australia at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio this week. Mr Burke won't leave the Government vulnerable by going to Rio without a pair, so the result of Mr Abbott's decision is to lessen Australia's standing as a global leader and influencer on environmental issues, and to make himself look petty. He has literally put party politics above the national interest. That doesn't just look petty; it is petty.

In Mr Abbott's case, the continual campaigning mode, identifiable by his reliance on the same three-word slogans he parroted during the official campaign, has made him a very effective and very unpopular Opposition Leader. It's time for him to change his approach: with just a year or so til the next Federal election, the electorate needs to see him as an alternative to Julia Gillard. Latest opinion polls suggest that isn't happening, although there is every chance that the Coalition will form the next government. Will “Prime Minister Abbott” remain as unpopular as he is now?

Politicians need to be chameleons. They need to know how to conduct themselves when campaigning, when in Opposition and when in Government, and fine-tune their approach depending on the situation. There’s little evidence yet that Premier Newman’s team has found its feet, and no evidence that Tony Abbott ever will. In the meantime, the electorate has had more than enough campaigning.

For now, please just get on with it.

Sticks & Stones

Ooooo-Aaaah.

The Australian Christian Lobby issued a media release earlier this week, claiming that it was unhappy with the way the Greens and gay activists were using strong language in their battle with the ACL over equal rights. Apparently the ACL don't take kindly to being called 'haters' and 'extremists'. 

ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace claimed to be both hurt and deeply offended by being referred to as a 'gay hater':

“I and the ACL do not hate anyone, let alone same-sex attracted people. Using pejoratives like ‘haters’ and ‘extremists’ to describe ACL is tantamount to intimidation tactics designed to cause us and others to stand aside from the debate,” Mr Wallace said.

I won't call Mr Wallace and his colleagues names. I'll suggest, quietly and with all due respect, that they're a bunch of self-aggrandising sooky-lalas with a narrow agenda and a fringe perspective. 

Better?

Has Mr Wallace considered how the LGBT community, single people and their supporters feel when accused of gross child abuse if they choose surrogacy as a means to parenthood? I can tell Mr Wallace right now that being accused of gross child abuse leaves "hater" in the shade, yet, on June 1st, the ACL issues this media release,
headlined "Single and same-sex surrogacy a gross abuse against of the rights of the child".

It was a carefully worded release, short on facts, designed to evoke the kind of imagery associated with pedophilia and the Roman Catholic Church. Mr Wallace says they run their campaigns without resorting to words of hate. Who needs words when you can evoke those images?

As discussed previously, the ACL hasn't offered any examples of this gross child abuse they're linking to gay (and single) parents,  or even a source from which they get their definition of what a child's rights might be. The rights of the child remain a convenient distraction for the ACL. 

This week's press release suggests that the ACL aren't too fond of being called extremists either. Well, I guess if their policy (singular) to repress gay rights wasn't so unpopular and so extreme, they wouldn't have to wear the title. According to the release, Mr Wallace and his team of non-haters don't hate people who are "same-sex-attracted". 

I challenge Mr Wallace on that. There has been exactly no evidence that I can find of any engagement with or compassion to the LGBT community by the ACL. None. Instead, there has been a wall of anti-gay commentary and persistent lobbying against anything that could bring this segment of our a step closer to equality.

Why? For the sake of the children, of course...except that there's no evidence of that either. 

Speaking of children, the vitriol directed at ACL's Wendy Francis following her high profile campaign against the Rip & Roll Safe Sex billboards is indefensible. No excuses.

Having said that, the ACL and their followers need to accept that every time they issue a media release, send a tweet or appear on media speaking out against rights for the LGBT community, there will be a response. Just as the ACL doesn't like being called 'haters', gays don't like being labelled abnormal, perverted, deviant, sick, or dangerous. The ACL has no right to be playing the victim card.

Still, if Mr Wallace wants to lose the "hater" tag, how about exercising some Christian love and acceptance by putting some of his, and the ACL's resources towards promoting an LGBT cause. They could choose any gay cause that doesn't conflict with their restrictive, anti-gay agenda: how about a campaign to address homophobia in public schools? Or a campaign to secure funding for the Queensland Association of Healthy Communities? 

If the ACL can't - or won't - find a pro-gay cause that it can support, then the homophobia and gay-hater labels are likely to stick...as they should.

As for the Greens and gay activists using words like 'hater' and 'extremist' to intimidate, Mr Wallace knows better than that. He's a retired soldier, a former commander of the SAS Regiment. This won't be the first time in his life that he's been told to "Harden up, Princess." I'll also encourage him to enjoy a nice big cup of reality; words aren't all that intimidating out here in the real world, and Brigadier Jim Wallace (Ret) knows it.

It's well past time that the ACL accepted that they aren't the victims in this battle, and they don't control the moral high ground. There is no moral high ground in a war to sideline, to undermine, to marginalise your fellow humans to preserve your own superiority.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. - His Holiness Dalai Lama

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.

How Embarrassing

I'm a relatively new Queenslander, having been here just ten years, but it's taken less than three months of the new Queensland LNP Government for me to feel embarrassed to be a Queenslander.

Don't misunderstand me; I wasn't always a happy Queenslander under the Beattie and Bligh Governments either. Yet in under three months, Premier Newman and his titanic team of baby MPs have annoyed me, disappointed me, frightened me, angered me and finally embarrassed me.

The Prime Minister, a handful of key federal ministers, most of the states' Premiers and  swag of top tier business leaders will meet in Brisbane this week for a national brainstorming session on Australia's role in the changing global economy. If that sounds like a bit of a big deal, that's because it could be, if the delegates are prepared to leave their titles and egos at the door.

But Premier Campbell Newman won't be there. He is too busy to represent the state that he leads at a major summit to discuss the economic future of the country. Even when the talkfest is being held in his home town. Never mind leaving his ego at the door; Premier Newman's ego is so big at the moment that he can't see around it. 

I'd like to see Premier Newman's diary for this week. I'm not denying that he has important work to do with his 100 Day Plan, yet how can he guide Queensland's future if he won't engage with the federal government, business leaders and his state counterparts? Furthermore, how can Queenslanders feel confident that we are being represented, if our most senior representative won't attend meetings being held literally up the street from his office?

Just a week after federal Environment Minister Tony Burke played a spiteful game of duelling press conferences with Queensland's Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney, this appear to be nothing more than another round of He-Man chest-beating from the new Government. Alternately, it could be a display of personal disrespect aimed at Prime Minister.

In a last minute attempt to get a seat at the table, Premier Newman offered to send a couple of junior ministers, but was told that registration for the event had closed. That's a shame, and possibly another example of politicians playing silly games, but equally, offering up a pair of junior ministers to sit at a table with the Prime Minister and her ministers,  and the heads of some of our most influential businesses, insults the rest of the participants. In any case, it wouldn't have been necessary if Mr Newman had done the right thing and accepted the invitation to represent Queensland's interests.

Premier Newman is a new player at this level; he still needs to secure those relationships. Even though the Labor Government looks like being rolled, the private sector representatives at this summit won't be. 

Premier Newman was offered a seat at the table and declined it, as did the Premiers of New South Wales and Western Australia...but this summit is not being held in Sydney or Perth. It's here in Brisbane, but it might as well be on the moon.

Common wisdom within a democracy suggests that if you don't participate in the process, you lose the right to complain if you don't like the decisions made in your absence. Decisions are made by those who show up. Premier Newman's decision to not show up undermines Queensland's position, and makes our new Premier look like an uncooperative prima donna.

How embarrassing.

Swimming with Guns

We've bred an entire generation of confused people, and the next generation is on the way. It's not because we allow gay health posters in bus shelters or because we legalised same sex civil partnerships or because of some progressive watermelon agenda to turn us all into lovely little communists. Its not even because of the Carbon Tax.

It's because we are totally inconsistent.

"Bad boy" swimmers Nick D'Arcy and Kenrick Monk are being punished by the AOC for posting on Facebook and Twitter a silly picture of themselves holding an armload of firearms. Oooh-Aahh, they've (possibly) brought themselves and their sport into disrepute, so they won't be permitted to use social media while at the London Olympics, and they won't be allowed to attend the Closing Ceremony. As punishment goes, barely more than a stern talking-to.

In other words, some uptight sports administrator thought the photo might be a bit controversial, so jumped up and down. It turns out that Australians aren't offended - or even interested - in these young blokes or their photos, but now that the noise has been made, token punishment must follow.

So did D'Arcy and Monk do something silly or not? I don't think Swimming Australia or the AOC can make up their minds. Having said that, the two sports organisations are the punch lines of the jokes, while the athletes have public sympathy on their side. International media is reporting this "scandal" with an appropriate degree of incredulity.

I particularly enjoyed the jokes about the Australian Shooting Team being suspended after posing for photos in a swimming pool, holding goggles and flippers.

Contrast this with the photo of Queensland Minister for Computers & Creative Bits and Pieces Ros Bates holding onto some kind of military mega-gun that looks like it could take out your house. Nary a whisper from her employer or her boss, Premier Campbell Newman.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is also the subject of controversial photos with a gun. While visiting our troops in Afghanistan, he allegedly asked to have a closer look at some of the weapons, a request probably not met with joy by the army brass. Still, the photos are there. The media didn't pay a lot of attention at the time, and later, it was overshadowed by the other media event of Mr Abbott's visit: Shit Happens.

Photos of our last four decades of Prime Ministers handling firearms are virtually impossible to find.

Many people go through their entire lives without touching or firing a gun. The swimmers were holding firearms that were legal; Ms Bates and Mr Abbott were holding a weapon not available outside the military. If you're a young adult watching the news, what message do you get? Is it:

A. Don't touch guns in America
B. It's okay if you're a politician but not if you're an athlete
C. You can handle guns if you're with some soldiers
D. Swimming Australia and the AOC are a bunch of uptight sooky lalas
E. Do whatever you like, but don't post the photos on Facebook

Why are Swimming Australia and the AOC over-reacting? Is the problem with their athletes handling guns, or posting the proof on social media? It's all about perception, and protecting reputation of Swimming Australia and their naughtiest athletes.

By the way, the answer to the question above is D.

Jim Wallace's Very Bad Week

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Mahatma Ghandi

I wouldn't want to be Jim Wallace this week. I wouldn't want to be Jim Wallace any day, but this week must've been spectacularly hard. This week, his moral crusade - the Australian Christian Lobby - is under attack on all fronts.

It was this week's surprise announcement that Sunrise was teaming up with Marie Claire and GetUp! in support of same sex marriage that triggered their latest campaign. The ACL, with their broad fiction linking the existence of homosexuality to endangering the welfare of children, jumped up and down and tried to convince their supporters to email-bomb Sunrise and it's advertisers. 

The ACL even approached ACMA (the Australian Communication and Media Authority) complaining that a "news and current affairs" programme should not be allowed to support a position. I guess they haven't seen The Bolt Report or listened to 2GB lately.

Sunrise saw the gathering controversy ahead of time, and invited Jim Wallace to debate Dr Kerryn Phelps on the show. Jim's nightmare continued. In fairness, the ACL's supporters felt he did a good job in hostile circumstances. I don't know that I'd categorise the environment as hostile - well, not until Mr Wallace compared the gay rights movement to Nazi Propaganda Meister Josef Goebbels. 

In that few moments, and with a national audience, he transformed the ACL from an annoying lobby group with rich, conservative friends in high places, to the an organised group of crazy extremists who represent the minority view.

The Australian published an editorial this morning in which Greg Callaghan commented:

In 2012 it is no longer acceptable to suggest that gay people are abnormal or unnatural, as the ACL regularly does, by separating us from "normal" heterosexuals in their nomenclature. Even columnist Andrew Bolt, a very vocal opponent of gay marriage, never descends to this, writing recently that "it offends me to hear someone say gays and lesbians are not normal".

The Fairfax press was also on the story today. 

Canon Richard Tutin from Queensland Churches Together, a body which represents 12 Christian churches including Catholics and Anglicans, said people from different churches were frustrated by the ACL.

"They totally have an agenda," he said.

"They're more interested in upholding a very, very traditional view of marriage and that's derived in their eyes from scripture and societal practice."

I hear you wondering if the ACL knows just how far it has travelled from the mainstream. The answer is that they believe they are speaking for the majority, and that those in favour of same sex marriage are a noisy minority with an evil agenda - hence Mr Wallace's reference to Goebbels. Statistically, the opposite is true. 

In February 2012, a Galaxy Poll reported 62% of voters supported gay marriage. So there it is - only 38% of Aussies agree with the ACL's position on same sex marriage...and I'd bet far fewer than that would have approved of Mr Wallace's Nazi inference. In fact, the ACL's position on gay marriage is more aligned with the fundamental Moslem position than with many Christian groups.

But remember that the ACL is a lobby group, not a church. Sure, they'd love for you to join their supporters, but their primary focus is in influencing our governments, whether that's by getting their candidates elected, or by influencing those already in parliament. For that, they need money.

Doug Pollard's blog is shining a light on the ACL executive: who are they, what are their backgrounds, and who funds them. This information isn't nearly as easy to find as it should be, given the ACL's status as a political lobby group, but Doug has learned that Goldings, a Queensland construction company, contributed in the order of six figures to ACL. Gloria Jeans, the coffee chain previously associated with Hillsong, has also donated tens of thousands of dollars to the ACL.

Jim Wallace and the other members of the ACL team probably won't be surprised to hear that there's talk on Twitter of boycotting Gloria Jeans stores to protest their support of the ACL.

Yeah,  it's been a bad week for the ACL: a frontal assault in the form on the Sunrise "I Do" campaign, Mr Wallace's cringeworthy appearance on the debate, the offensive Nazi reference, an opinion piece against them in a national newspaper, a news story in Fairfax publications about other Christians distancing themselves from the ACL, bloggers digging into their activities (including this one) and now murmurs of a boycott of one of their key donors? 

Their war might be against gays and gay rights, but the ACL should consider choosing their battles. Taking on a national television show, a magazine and experienced activist group and the weight of public opinion armed with nothing but a website and Jim Wallace was not their finest moment. 

Stupid is not Illegal

Australian Swimmers Nick D'Arcy and Kenrick Monk went to a shooting range, fired a few crackers (under supervision), had their photo taken with guns, posted it on Facebook, got in trouble, removed the photo and flew home into a media shitstorm and a cloud over their Olympic selection.

Is there any chance that someone has over-reacted?

Maybe. Swimming Australia has a social media policy. They encourage athletes to be involved in social media, subject to their policies. That sounds fair enough, but begs the question: on what grounds has Swimming Australia reacted regarding the now-infamous photo of two swimmers with a handful of guns. What exactly happened?

The Swimming Australia Statement fails to explain anything other than that the photo or photos were judged by someone to be inappropriate.

Swimming Australia became aware of inappropriate photos posted on athletes' Facebook pages and Twitter accounts this morning, and instantly contacted the athletes involved to ask for them to be removed under Swimming Australia’s Social Media Guidelines.

The athletes have subsequently removed the photos.

Swimming Australia in no way condones these photos, and does not condone the posting of inappropriate content on Facebook, Twitter or any social media platform.

This is a timely reminder for athletes to more be responsible to themselves, the public with whom they engage through social media, and the reputation of the sport.

The athletes involved are currently returning from a training camp and competition in the US, and will be spoken to further upon their return.

Swimming Australia's Social Media Policy is every bit as vague as their legal team would want it to be. It's impossible to detail every way in which the spirit of the policy could be breached, so the policy is not specific. It also leaves it open to interpretation. The following is the policy guideline regarding posting photos to the internet: 

Swimming Australia also treats all photographs, video and audio ‘material’ posted onto social media as public comment and accessible to the public. Any material that may be considered negative, derogatory or inappropriate towards Persons bound by these Guidelines should not be posted. 

So, the photo of Nick D'Arcy and Kenrick Monk fondling an armload of firearms is considered "inappropriate" by someone is a position of authority within Swimming Australia...would it be different if instead of swimmers, the athletes in the photo had been shooters? 

What the swimmers did - posing for photographs while holding firearms - is perfectly legal in the USA. It's not illegal to buy these real-life Rambo-props in California. Equally, it's not illegal to be photographed handling those weapons. It's not even illegal to post the photo on Facebook or Twitter. So they haven't broken any laws.

It must be the association of swimming or swimmers with guns and violence.  It's not a great look, but is it worth this level of hand-wringing? They were being yobbo-tourists. Had they been in Germany, they might've taken a few laps of the Nurburgring, and had photos taken with crash helmets. 

Our Aussie Chef de Mission Nick Green commented "you can't be serious", but whether that is directed at the photo or the outrage is unknown. He did, however, explain that the by posting the photos, the swimmers may have brought themselves and the team into disrepute.

That would be redundant. These two swimmers have already blotted their copybooks. I doubt that this would be an issue if Nick D'Arcy and Kenrick Monk weren't better known for bad behaviour out of the pool than great performances in the water. D'Arcy king-hit another swimmer, putting him in hospital, and Monk stacked his skateboard, then made a police report that he'd been in a hit-n-run. 

It's a fact that of the hundreds of athletes representing Australia in London this year, D'Arcy and Monk will be watched more closely and punished more severely if they do something dumb. We're seeing evidence of that already. They should bear it in mind before doing anything that could be considered even marginally risky. 

I wish that was the end of it; it's not.

Kenrick and D'Arcy may have to front the AOC to explain why they should keep their places in the Olympic team. I'm not a fan of either of these swimmers, purely due to their previous acts of stupidity, but enough is enough. In this case, there was no malice, no violence, no-one was hurt and no intent to deceive: just a couple of immature guys and a trigger-happy authority calling the shots.

Note: The photo in question was removed from Facebook when instructed by Swimming Australia officials, but the Internet is forever. A quick Google search will yield multiple copies of the image. 

The ACL Agenda

This morning, Sunrise hosted a short debate on same sex marriage. The participants were Dr Kerryn Phelps, a married lesbian, and Jim Wallace, Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby. Time constraints, and a lack of debate structure hampered the ability of either side to land a killer argument, although each had a theme. For Dr Phelps, it's all about equality. For the ACL, it's all about the children...and something entirely inappropriate about Nazis, but let's concentrate on his focus: children.

Mr Wallace failed to make any explanation as to why same sex marriage had anything to do with children, other than to suggest that all marriage is about children. That, Mr Wallace, is bollocks.

There was a graph floating around on Twitter yesterday, showing the disproportionate focus of the ACL on homosexuality. The graph illustrated that the number of anti-gay press releases and self-reported media mentions from January-June outnumbers the sum of press releases and mentions for all other topics. (I'm unsure who put this together, but whoever you are, thank you.) I'd go so far as to suggest that a large chunk of the ACL press releases and media mentions about homosexuality also make mention of children, children's rights, and protecting the children from the dangerous influences of gay people. 

So, let's take Wendy Francis's suggestion, and think of the children.

According to the Australian Human Rights Commission, children – defined as a human under the age  of 18 - have rights. The Convention of the Rights of the Child include these four core principles:

·         The right to survival and development;
·         Respect for the best interests of the child as a primary consideration;
·         The right of all children to express their views freely on all matters affecting them; and
·         The right of all children to enjoy all the rights of the CRC without discrimination of any kind.

According to a media release from Jim Wallace just last week, single and same-sex surrogacy is a gross abuse against the rights of the child.

Jim Wallace and his ACL are so completely disengaged from the real world that they themselves are the danger, as we saw during Jim's semi-coherent debate appearance this morning. Jim's a former Army Officer - he should know better than to liken his "enemies" to Nazis. But he did pivot back to his point, that it's all about children.

In fact, the ACL has an entire programme called ForKidSake dedicated to serving the best interests of Australian children.

Each of the three key recommendations from the ACL's ForKidSake campaign comes from a research project commissioned by the ACL and conducted by Professor Patrick Parkinson, professor of law at Sydney University. There is a handy link from the ForKidSake section of the ACL website to Professor Parkinson’s 126 page report, yet the ACL website includes only the summary that the ACL wants you to see. Their cherry-picked summary makes for annoying reading: it includes “Some of the research findings”, and “some significant recommendations”. Any half-awake reader would know that it was incomplete. 

"Some of the recommendations" might be good enough for the ACL, but the rest of us demand the complete picture. I have read the three recommendations published on the ACL Website, and I have read the 14 Recommendations in Professor Parkinson' Report, and I suggest that you do too. This is a solid and inclusive piece of work which emphasises the importance of family and community as they relate to the development of children, and suggests an overall responsibility is at the Federal Government level, cascading through levels of government into the community.

The report does not, however, define the ideal family. It does not exclude non-traditional families, single parent families, blended families, mixed-race families, polygamous families, 1960s hippy communes, extended families or families that include same sex parents. Equally, it doesn't shy away from exploring the higher proportion of problems encountered by children in non-traditional family structures.

I suspect the reason that Professor Parkinson has neither detailed the ideal family structure nor discussed the ACL-suggested dangers of non-traditional families is because the research doesn’t support the notion that every traditional nuclear family is better for the children that any other option. 

In fact, the Report accepts the existence and legitimacy of LGBT groups within the community as early as Recommendation 1(c).

To encourage Parents and Citizens’ Associations, community organisations such as Rotary or Lions Clubs, churches, other faith-based communities, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse organisations, gay and lesbian organisations and any other interested group to offer relationship education programs free of charge in their local community or in workplaces, or in universities, utilising trained volunteer educators, or educators paid on a sessional basis.

So sustained is the ACL's campaign against gay marriage and gay parenting, we wonder if, in ACL-World, it is better to have a perfect Mum plus Dad plus two-point-whatever kids (biological offspring of the aforementioned Mum and Dad), even if Mum drinks a bottle of vodka before breakfast, even if Dad feeds his entire income through the pokies every payday, even if the home hides domestic violence, emotional abuse, incest and worse, than to have two parents of the same sex. Yes, this is gross exaggeration, yet there are no asterisks in the ACL literature.

Still, according to last week's press release from Jim Wallace, gay parenting (and single parenting) resulting from surrogacy would be gross abuse against the rights of the child.

That kind of homophobic nonsense is simply not true, and Professor Parkinson's report did not suggest that it was.

Mr Wallace’s statement last week said:

“Evidence heard at recent enquiries and a parliamentary inquiry in Victoria into donor conception and surrogacy has shown it is harmful to children to be deliberately severed from their biological mother or father.”

This argument suggests that all surrogacy is equally detrimental to the child, due to the severing of connection to a biological parent. It's not just gays and singles. Heterosexual couples who use a surrogate face the same risks and dangers that Jim Wallace links to single and gay parents. Is that what the ACL really thinks? Professor Parkinson noted the separation as an issue in his report, yet again, did not mention gay parents specifically.

And what is this about severing relationships in the specific context of surrogacy? That’s an assumption by Mr Wallace. The non-custodial biological parent may be a treasured  member of an extended family, which would surely align with Professor Parkinson’s recommendations. 

Given the ACL's objection to abortion, where does it stand on adoption? Adoption forces separation between a child and it's biological parents. Wouldn't that be risking harm to he child? Maybe the ACL would prefer that all pregnant women just shut up and keep their babies? What if the mother is single? The ACL won't like that! The entire argument is so circular, so nonsensical, that the only solution that would be acceptable to the ACL would be for no-one to ever be pregnant outside the structure of traditional hetero-sexual monogamous marriage.

This does not reflect the reality we live in.

The ACL is an all-or-nothing political lobby groyp. Their mantra is "Won't Someone Think Of The Children?" Good question, because I can't see where the ACL places children first. It looks to me as though the ACL is using children as a convenient smokescreen to disguise their real purpose: the anti-gay agenda. 

Rainbows Over Sunrise

It's common knowledge now that Sunrise has teamed with Marie Claire and GetUp! in support of Same Sex Marriage. It's almost as well known that Australian Christian Lobby is exploding in a small fiery ball of self-righteous homophobia at the thought of a major television show supporting something they spend their entire lives fighting against.

Good on them, I say! We don't hear nearly enough from Jim Wallace, Lyle Shelton and Wendy Francis about how private, consenting relationships between two adults who happen to be of the same sex can do irrevocable ... something something ... Oh, won't somebody think of the children?

In truth, I'm in favour of looking after the children too, and I'd volunteer to babysit hoards of them before I'd let the folks from the ACL anywhere near one. There. I said it.

But back to today's ACL campaign, designed to ensure that the Governments - both State and Federal -  aren't influenced by anyone or anything other than the Christian Right, and perhaps Big Mining. That's fine; it's their job, and they do it well. Those skills should come in handy they try to talk their way through the Pearly Gates. Somehow, I think their greeting might not be what they expect.

Anyway, the ACL's website includes the following paragraphs, which I'll include here so you don't have to go there:  

That a TV current affairs show, let alone TV station, should take sides in such a highly contentious issue in the public square is disgraceful.  What it says for the respect they have for alternative opinion, even our values, is extremely disappointing and we need to register our disappointment.

This comes at a strategic time in the debate, so please spend a minute to fill out the Sunrise comments section at this link to make your comment, but please do it now 

You might:

Ask them what you are supposed to think this action means for their respect and even tolerance of your views and values on an issue that  goes to the very heart of family and the flourishing of children;

Ask why Sunrise has decided it’s a ‘human rights issue’ when the Australian Government has removed discrimination in 84 laws in 2008 and when the European Court of Human Rights ruled in March that same-sex marriage is not a human right

Register your disgust that the press, supposedly the neutral umpire and facilitator of public debate, should allow itself to be captured by the propaganda machine of the gay lobby; and

If you’re so convicted, you might advise them that you do not propose to watch the show again.

Also, please consider sending an email to Sunrise’s partners sharing your concerns about the television show. They include Purina, The Coffee Club, Accor Hotels, Myer and Jetstar.

Bully for the ACL,  who are without doubt the least Christian group of any Christian group this side of the Vatican. Remember though, they are not a Christian Church; they are a political lobby group, with all the Christian grace and generosity of spirit that you'd expect from a political lobby group. Their anti-gay stance is as steadfast as it is bewildering.

Meanwhile the rest of us are signing our petitions and sending letters of support to Sunrise and their advertisers. Thanks again to the ACL for including that list on their website, along with the helpful Sunrise Feedback link! Yes, we're that clever!

At the other end of the spectrum, the official GetUp Petition to thank Sunrise was closing in on 30,000 signatures at the time of writing this. Here's GetUp!'s blurb:  

Yesterday we announced that Sunrise are getting behind the campaign to stop marriage discrimination. This morning they woke up to a campaign backed by the Australian Christian Lobby denouncing their decision.

The Sunrise team went out on a limb and others who might be thinking about backing this campaign will be watching how this situation unfolds. Can you let the team know they have our support by adding your name to the thank you card on the left?

You know how I feel about the ACL's hate campaign against the LGBT community. Please take a look at the two perspectives above, and consider which one is deliberately divisive, which one is promoting fear and distrust, which one is more Christian.

Let Girls Be Girls

When I was making my career choices about thirty years ago, I went with my natural strengths, the things I was good at, the things I enjoy. In the 80s, the gender divide was more pronounced than it is now; had I wanted to study engineering, or do an apprenticeship as a builder or plumber, my life might've been harder, but even then, there was nothing but my own preferences and the community expectations of a small town.

This year, my beautiful step-daughter was accepted into university to study civil engineering. She worked hard at high school, got the marks she needed and was accepted into the course she'd been dreaming about for years. One of my closest friends from high school took longer to make her choice, but she's now a qualified and successful architect. There were no gender-related barriers to these careers for Steph and Su, no additional financial burden levied on students with vaginas. They met the entry requirements, and were accepted.

Yesterday, Queensland Premier Campbell Newman and Education Minister John Paul Langbroek announced a $10m scholarship programme to encourage women into careers more traditionally dominated by men. I'm usually in favour of projects to support minorities and break down social barriers, but in this case, I wasn't aware that there was a need.

I'm still not convinced. Women who want 'Hard-Hat' careers are already doing it, aren't they? Steph and Su are. The women in hi-viz and PPE who work at the manufacturing plant down the road are.

Premier Newman justified his scholarship:

"Female enrolments in the areas of engineering and architecture lagged well behind those of males, with 408 women enrolled in engineering in Queensland last year compared to 2,923 men."

Two years ago, The Guardian looked at this issue:

"Engineering is the subject with the smallest proportion of women, with fewer than one in seven students female. Peter Hicks, a member of the education and skills panel of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, is concerned. "We need to be very worried that ... these figure are low and not getting any better. In my 40 years of teaching electrical engineering at Manchester University women never made up more than 5% of my classes. The UK desperately needs engineers – we can't afford to lose what is effectively half of its talent."

Female Engineers - Their Own Perspective is a study by the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University. Their study included an investigation of the reasons why women didn't choose engineering careers: eight reasons were identified but the expense of studying was not even one of the eight factors identified. 

Is a scholarship scheme the right approach, then? In fact, is the career/gender imbalance a problem at all? Stuart Nathan, Features Editor of The Engineer, sees a problem, but suggests the answer lies in communication. As far as I know, there are no actual barriers to women entering male-dominated career areas, the priesthood notwithstanding.  Logically, if women are under-represented, it must be because they are less inclined to take up positions in the Hard-Hat careers.

"The main argument for attracting women into engineering is an extremely simple one. A sector which draws only on one gender is exploiting half of its available talent pool. It’s ridiculous to imagine that the skills and talents needed to become an engineer are restricted to men, and many women are being denied the chance to use their abilities in a field which needs all the innovative people it can get."

The previous government had a communications programme to encourage women to consider these career areas:  the focus was in highlighting to women the benefits in considering these less traditional careers, and providing  information and resources about different career paths.

In any case, the Newman Government will make available up to 5000 scholarships for women in Queensland studying 'Hard Hat' careers in engineering, construction, architecture and agriculture.  Is this Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity, positive discrimination? Definitely.

And I'm left with a couple of questions:

Will the promise of a $20,000 scholarship change a woman's mind about her career course? If she was planning to study for a more 'feminine' career, say, Communications or Human Resources or Nursing, is that scholarship enough to move her choice to, say Architecture or Agronomy?

Secondly, what problem does this scholarship solve? If the scheme works, what does success look like? More female graduates? Great - but to what end? Less males in hard hats? What's the point?

Men and women can be equal, and can earn equally. Do we really need to have everything split 50/50 to prove a lack of bias? Men and women have different skill sets, different talents, different natural competencies. Shouldn't women be applauded for choosing the career that is right for them, not just encouraged to fill an artificial or irrelevant a quota.

If we're all free to contribute in the way best suited to us, isn't that the best measure of equality?

But the Queensland number is more than double the 5% quoted above, and unless there is an increase in the overall number of university and training places, there won't be an increase in the number of graduates, so this scholarship does not address the skills shortage at all.That's 3,331 engineering places in Queensland last year, and about 12% are held by women. Premier Newman's comment suggests that the proportion of women should be higher, despite Queensland's figures being in line with international statistics.

Two Parties - Neither Preferred

Today's Herald/Neilsen poll is yet more confirmation that Australians are less than enchanted  with both the Federal Labor Government, and the Coalition in Opposition. No matter how these numbers are cut, there are no clear winners, least of all the Australian public. 

Today's poll sees the Labor Government once again nudging the record low primary vote of 26%. Get away from the statistics for a moment, and remember that these numbers represent people: put four adult Australians around a table, and three of them would vote for someone else before they'd vote Labor. If you're the one ALP voter at your table, you might want to talk about something  other than politics; something less controversial, like the existence of God or life on other planets...

The truly frightening numbers are those involving our leaders. Sixty percent disapprove of the job the Prime Minister is doing. 57% disapprove of the job Tony Abbott is doing as Opposition Leader. Approval numbers are at 36% and 39% respectively.  

And that's not the worst of it for Gillard and Abbott. Both current leaders are far less popular than their predecessors. Gillard trails Kevin Rudd by 30 percentage points, and Abbott trails Malcolm Turnbull by 27. Those numbers aren't really as dangerous they look though; both party's leadership issues flatten out considerably when opposition party voters are excluded. 

The one big move in the poll is Tony Abbott's personal approval dropping five points. As I write this, Mr Abbott is spinning for all he's worth, at a press call located at a garbage dump - bring your own imagery. Journalist and author George Megalogenis has tweeted: 

John Howard was poll-driven. But he never fell for trap of responding to, let alone spinning each survey. @TonyAbbottMHR is no John Howard.

Mr Abbott is nothing if not reactionary, and Ms Gillard tends to bite every time he attacks. That makes him an effective, if unpopular, Opposition Leader, but not an effective Party Leader or Prime Minister. A Liberal leadership spill would be unlikely though; with such a solid Primary and 2PP vote, there's no imperative for a leadership change.

Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott have one thing in common though: they both had rocky starts to their leadership: Gillard was crucified for her assassination of Kevin Rudd, and Tony Abbott beat Turnbull in a spill, by a margin of just one vote. 

To break out the sweeping generalisations from today's poll, here are a few headlines:

3 in 4 voters won't vote for a Labor candidate
3 in 5 voters don't approve of the job the Prime Minister is doing
3 in 5 voters don't approve of the job the Opposition Leader is doing
Kevin Rudd is almost twice as popular as Julia Gillard
Malcolm Turnbull is approaching twice as popular as Tony Abbott

So it still looks as though the Coalition will form the next government with a swing of around 7%, but it's not something they should be proud of. They're not liked or respected; they're still just "less awful than Labor".  What a mandate that would be: "just be better than the last lot".

This poll included a specific question to gauge reaction to the Coalition's relentless attacks on Labor over the Craig Thomson Fiasco. For all our bleating that the voters are sick of their parliament being a swirling cesspool of negativity,  53% responded that the Coalition attacks were either 'reasonable' or 'hadn't gone far enough'. Only 31% thought the Coalition had been excessive in their pursuit of Mr Thomson.

Careful now, this is confusing: 57% disapprove of the job Tony Abbott is doing, his personal approval has dropped by 5%, yet 53% approved of his handling of Craig Thomson's demise. What does this mean? Do we want more nasty, personal, even brutal offensives in our political arena? Or is it more a case that Craig Thomson looks as guilty as sin and is therefore a fair target? Perhaps it's the third option - a reflection of primary voting intention? 

It's hard to read what's happening in the minds of voters right now, other than a strong "please don't make me vote for either of those two" sentiment. Having said that, what are the options? The Greens picked a smidgen under their new leader Christine Milne, but they aren't a major party, and hardly an option for conservative voters. 

While the structure of this parliament has highlighted the roles of the Independents, they may have endangered their own existence. Sadly, these independents who are free to vote as their beliefs dictate, for the benefit of their electorates, may not be re-elected. Rob Oakeshott is still mocked for his seventeen minute speech announcing his allegiance with Labor, allowing Ms Gillard to form a Government. Seventeen minutes can be a long time, but it's a shame we remember the length of the speech and not the substance. 

It's almost inconceivable that Bob Katter's party could have an influence outside of Queensland, where despite both singing and dancing, it made little impact on election. Even today, Bob Katter is talking up his party performance in the Queensland election. The KAP won only two seats, but polled around 15% of the vote in some key seats. Unfortunately, 15% doesn't get you a ticket to the show.

So it appears that we don't like our current government, and we don't like the alternative government. Factoring in the unions and Greens on the left and the Mining interests and Christian Lobby on the right, it's hard to have confidence in how much leading the Leaders are doing. They appear to be following their masters, although not exclusively. We don't like the negative way politics is conducted, but it was acceptable to at least half the sample to watch Tony Abbott - of whom they disapprove - tear Craig Thomson into soggy little sound bites.

We have less than eighteen months at the outside until the next Federal election must be held. Something is wrong, and we need to fix it. 

Does Not Play Well With Others

Gina Rinehart is the world's richest woman, and from all accounts, a mean businesswoman, a mean daughter, a mean mother, a mean negotiator. Let's just cut through the exploratory musings, offer no benefit of the doubt, and call it: Gina is a Mean Girl.

Known as Gina, Georgina Hope Rinehart was until quite recently, a private soul, best known for her fourteen year long legal battle with her stepmother, the flamboyant Rose Hancock Porteous, for control of her father's mining interests. It was just one of those family things. Rose was Lang Hangcock's exotic widow, Gina is his intelligent, ambitious daughter. Rose was about beauty and grace, Gina was about results and success.. Gina kept control of Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd. Rose remarried with indecent, inglorious haste.

But while all this was going on, Gina was running her late father's company. She had four children from two marriages, a degree in economics and a nice big mining boom to ride.

Ride it she did, reaching billionaire status in 2006, riding some impressive Rich Lists along the way. The GFC was, in it's way, kinder to some than others. Mining operators fared particularly well, and Gina emerged ahead of the pack. Australia's Richest Person soon became the World's Richest Woman.

But back in 2007, just before the GFC, the conservative Howard Government was comprehensively rolled by Kevin-oh-Seven, and Gina's world was about to change. The new government started questioning the right of private companies to keep the all of the profits they made from mining Austalian land. Add to that the Greatest Moral Challenge of our time - Climate Change - and Gina had a few new challenges to face.

The Mining Resource Rent Tax was the Government's answer to sharing some of the national windfall from the mining boom, yet signalled the end of Kevin Rudd's Prime Ministership, and the beginning of one of the most bizarre sights in Australian history: billionaire mining magnates joining a public protest against a Great Big New Tax. Protests continued, and new PM Julia Gillard negotiated a less ballsy version of the tax.

Compared to her cosy symbiotic relationship with the Coalition, it appeared that after a decade-plus of Howard largesse, Australia might have a government willing to stand up to big end of town. There were other magnates protesting - Clive Palmer, Twiggy Forest - and other issues, most notably the Carbon Tax, but it was Gina who stood out during the protests against the MRRT. Perhaps it was her femininity in a sea of hi-viz hard-hatted blokeness? Her income is obscene, yet her effective tax rate is a fraction of yours and mine. Still, Gina had the balls to protest a tax which be applied only to part of her company's profits. Just how mean is mean?

Mean enough to sustain fourteen years of legal action against her stepmother. Mean enough to decide her own children are too dumb to control their own money, mean enough go to court to maintain control of her (adult) children's inheritances. Mean enough to rip her own family apart.

The Family Inheritance

In what looks like an inexplicable case of Mean Mother, Gina took it upon herself to monkey around with some details of the inheritance left to her own four children. The Herald Sun summarised on May 9:

The Supreme Court has heard today that Australia's richest person changed the vesting date of the 1988 family Trust on April 30, from 2068 to now.

That means that the children, as beneficiaries, are entitled to their share of the dividends of the family's primary company Hancock Prospecting - but it is understood the change of the vesting date could result in tax complications.

Ms Rinehart's three eldest children - John, Bianca and Hope - launched court action last September, just after their younger sister Ginia's 25th birthday which was supposed to make the vesting of the Trust. 

A series 80s glamour-soapie-esque revelations kept the family business in the headlines.

• Gina's assertion that her children aren't capable of managing their money;
• the married daughter, begging for funds so that she could pay for the necessary cook, housekeeper and bodyguard to enhance her cushy New York lifestyle;
• Gina's plea that her three rogue children cease their efforts to get control of the funds because it might may them look greedy; 
• the loyal youngest child, Ginia;
• the bizarre involvement of Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce and Liberal MP Alby Schulz;
• Gina's absolute determination - and subsequent failure - to keep the story from becoming public property.

And even if Gina's actions are all conceived with the best of intentions, she and her family appear to have all the dignity of an Aaron Spelling-penned bitchfight. The lawyers will continue to cash in, with more court appearances scheduled for July.

Roy Hill

Out of a clear autumn sky just a few weeks ago, Australians learned that our government - a Labor Government - has approved a plan whereby Gina can recruit up to 1700 foreign workers on 457 Enterprise Migration Agreements for her new 9.5 billion dollar iron ore mine at Roy Hill. There's no requirement for those 1700 positions to be advertised in Australia, and nothing like enough detail for us to decide just how concerned we should be.

At least we know that the 1700 imported workers will account for only about 20% of the projected peak workforce at Roy Hill. According to union boss Paul Howes, 130,000 Australian manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the last 5 years. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen justified the decision by doubting the willingness of skilled Australian workers to move to the  I can't help but wonder if maybe an investment in tempting East Coast Aussies to head west would have made more political sense.

Prime Minister Gillard was out of the country when the deal became public, and since returning, she's flip flopped around the issue like a fresh fish on a jetty. It's a nice show of support for Mean Gina from the Labor Government; a government founded on a national rejection of WorkChoices, and a promise to protect Australian workers. It's not so great if you're an Australian worker or union boss, or possibly the Australian Prime Minister.

Alpha

Roy Hill isn't the only Hancock property with a likely part-foreign workforce. The multi-billion dollar Alpha North mine in Queensland is a joint venture between Gina's company and an Indian group, GVK. Approved just last week by Queensland's mines-friendly Newman Government, North Alpha is already controversial. The Courier Mail ended their story with this little gem, only hinting at dissatisfaction with the idea that the Roy Hill EMA situation could be repeated on the East Coast.

Several Labor MPs, including Treasurer Wayne Swan, said constituents had complained they could not get a foot in the door for a job in the sector.

 A few days later, Alpha is in the news again, with reports in the Brisbane Times that Hancock Coal's relationship with the Newman Government and Queensland's Coordinator-General Barry Roe are even more comfortable than suspected. The project approval included 128 environmental conditions, but has failed to meet federal requirements, despite agreeing to at the recent COAG meeting. Scrutiny on Alpha North and Gina's relationship with state and federal governments will continue, particularly after UNESCO's verdict this week that Australian Governments must take action to protect the Great Barrier Reef from the potentially devastating effects of mining.

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke has already called the approval process diabolic because it failed to complete required federal assessments on the project.

Now Greenpeace has leaked an email from a staff member of Mr Roe to the federal environment department, written five days before the mine was approved.

In the email, obtained by AAP, the staffer admits that the coordinator general "was still a long way short of what you are looking for", referring to not assessing federal environmental approval process.

Despite all of this, Gina seems to be winning every one of her battles. Is it power? Is it control? Is it a pathological need to have more and more and more, regardless of the cost to her family relationships and reputation? Is it the human embodiment of "She with the most toys, wins"?

It's probably all of those things, but it's still mean. Gina might win, but she does not play well with others

 

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.