With just under two weeks left until the earliest WA election in 100 years, the main story of the campaign is a Premier trying to position himself as a strong and decisive leader, and an opposition trying to paint him as devious and arrogant. It’s all about Carps, really.
He’s devious because he’s trying to avoid CCC reports that will prove just how deep he was in with Brian Burke. He went to parties with Burke, you see. The idea that Brian Burke installed Carps as leader is one of those stories that’s both true and not-true, all at the same time. Continue reading ‘I am not, nor have I ever been…’
We featured some of Marcus Westbury’s commentary on cultural policy here at LP around the time of the 2020 summit. Here’s a guest post which originally appeared at his blog - it’s the text of a talk he gave to a forum on “Creative People” organised by the Department of Culture and The Arts in Perth as part of the process they’re undertaking of developing a policy framework for Western Australia.
One of my obsessions at the moment and the focus of the next series of Not Quite Art is our changing cultural geography. By that I mean how the cultures that we are exposed to, that influence and obsess us are circulating in the world.
Jeff Kennett was notorious for his dislike of inquiries, particularly royal commissions. But there was one that even he had to commission immediately, when the Longford gas plant suffered an explosion in September 1998, killing two people and shutting down Victoria’s natural gas supply system for nearly three weeks. I remember it well, living on-campus at Melbourne University at the time. It was three weeks of barbecues, and boiling kettles to have a bath. More pertinently, it also shut down much of Victorian industry, from dairies to car manufacturers.
The WA Liberal Party has, predictably, called for a royal commission into the crisis, focussing on the role of the various state government regulators in monitoring the Varanus Island gas plant. Personally, I reckon that might be asking a secondary question.
Some of the tensions in Rudd’s governance and indeed in his Cabinet over climate change issues are discussed by Brian in this post. Brian’s thoughts could usefully be read together with Shaun Carney’s column in yesterday’s Age [via Gary Sauer-Thompson at Public Opinion]:
The central tension for contemporary Labor is the need to weave together its disparate supporting tribes and Rudd’s car plan, which co-opts concern about climate change to underpin the ALP’s more traditional working class base, tells us how he wants to do it. When Labor was last in power, under Paul Keating, it managed to hold on to most of its white-collar support base but lost office when parts of its blue-collar base, pummelled by the effects of economic deregulation, concluded it had lost touch. Since then, the white-collar left has coalesced more solidly around the Greens - an effect that has been turbo-charged by the death of the more moderate Democrats. This has two consequences, both of which make it harder for Labor to hold on to power.
I have no idea whether it will be, but the songs that impressed me last night were the ones from Albania, Georgia and Portugal (and to a lesser degree Malta - good voice, lousy song). I didn’t see Friday night’s so not dissing any of the songs from the first semi (but I would like to diss Mr Denmark, who I hope has a long career in policing as he apparently desires).
Here’s an open Eurovision thread. Please no discussion of winners until 12.45am - because otherwise you’re doing the spoiler thing for our Perthling friends. So unless you want to earn the justified enmnity of Anna Winter, you’ve been warned!
May I also add, if SBS are reading, that next year I think we want to see more Julia Zemiro and less of the Pommie commentary…
This is a lift from Peter Beattie’s practice, an idea that he introduced when bargaining for the support of independent MP Peter Wellington in 1998 after the election of a hung parliament. Although the practice of openness could hardly be described as a hallmark of the Beattie years in some respects (notably in the area of FOI and in some instances accountability to Parliament) - and indeed that’s why Anna Bligh is making a virtue of a new openness - he was pretty genuine about being prepared to demystify the processes of government and take flak as well as kudos directly from the public. Although the political class are inclined to be cynical about this, and to dismiss meetings like this as stunts, it’s unwise to underestimate the degree to which this sort of thing has kept Labor in office in Queensland so long.
As Rudd would know, it’s one thing senior bureaucrats absolutely hated - at least at first. I heard one Director-General say a few years ago at a seminar that it was very useful. Rudd would also be aware that it’s a good tonic against arrogance and losing touch.
There are a number of moves like this from the Labor government - again the creation of a petitions committee is more important than many might think. It doesn’t cost much to actually take some note of the concerns citizens have, but it’s surprising how unwilling governments normally are to do this.
It’s also interesting to note that WA - Labor’s worst state in the election - is getting the community cabinet treatment first.
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