Archive for the 'Howardia' Category

John Howard AC

Published
by
Mark
4 months ago
in Australiana, Howardia and Sociology
. 95 Comments

I’m waiting - in vain - for someone to point out that every former Prime Minister is offered an honour in the Order of Australia. Paul Keating refused his. John Howard hasn’t.

One of the changes that John Major made on becoming Britain’s PM - to reinforce his theme of a meritocratic, classless society - was to call for public nominations for honours. There was a lot of controversy in the first year that they were sought - the number that came in far exceeded expectations and there was some suspicion that many of the public nominations were not even considered. Yet the great and the good - former civil servants, Foreign Office grandees, personal friends of the Royal family, and ex-pollies continued to dominate honours.

The introduction of the Order of Australia did do something to take away the cringe factor that went with Imperial honours, something that is still very much alive in the United Kingdom in a society still structured by deference and status in a much more overt way than in this country. Continue reading ‘John Howard AC’

Australia’s War is over II

Published
by
Mark
4 months ago
in Ethics, Foreign policy, Howardia, International, Iraq, Law, Media and Middle East
. 55 Comments

There’s been some comment here on a previous thread about why Australia’s withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq has stimulated so little debate - either in the media or in the blogosphere. My comment on why that might be so is here, and I’d add that the rather narrow concept of the political in Australian public discourse tends to mean that issues which are “politically neutralised” are quickly forgotten. That’s most unfortunate - because going to war on the basis of specious legal justifications and distortions and lies about intelligence is hardly a trivial matter. We owe it to ourselves as a nation to ensure this never occurs again, and the risk of it occurring again is surely heightened by a failure to remember.

I want to highlight in this post two exceptions to the rule of silence. First, in the blogosphere, Gandhi has written a comprehensive post analysing the week’s news and developments, highlighting the attempts of some in legal and activist circles to bring John Howard’s actions before the notice of the International Criminal Court, a move supported by Democrats leader Lyn Allison. Similar action in the United Kingdom was the subject of much publicity and debate, but there’s been little reporting of the substance of the brief prepared or its justification in this country. It’s important to remember that John Howard - I suspect on legal advice - ruled out “regime change”, human rights abuses or democratic goals as sufficient conditions for the Iraq War in a speech to the National Press Club on 14 March 2003. According to Howard at the time, only Saddam’s purported possession of weapons of mass destruction constituted an appropriate ground for the decision to go to war. All his later bloviating, by his own standards, was just political piffle.

It may well be that Howard had advice that the only legal justification for war was the resolutions of the UN Security Council regarding weapons inspections. That was certainly the advice given to the British government, as we know after a series of inquiries in the UK. I’m no lawyer, but it might well be that this figleaf provides sufficient legal cover for Howard to escape any culpability for his actions. It may also be that the subsequent UN recognition of the occupation of Iraq would provide some sort of retrospective immunity. Nevertheless, given the enormous importance of clarifying the legal basis or otherwise for wars of pre-emption, it seems to me eminently desirable that such an argument - an argument based on international law - be tested in an international tribunal.

That takes us to the issue of intelligence, because as we now know, Saddam Hussein had ended his WMD program in the 1990s. Continue reading ‘Australia’s War is over II’

Lest we forget

Published
by
Mark
4 months, 1 week ago
in Howardia, Iraq and Photography
. 56 Comments

As the architect of Australia’s participation in the Iraq War professes to be “baffled” at our withdrawal, and as his arguments for going to war are systematically demolished, a picture doing the rounds of the intertubes speaks a thousand words.

[Via an anonymous correspondent]

Meanwhile, the faith-based community the White House comments. [Via gandhi in comments]

Auntie ABC passes the “biased reporting” test

Published
by
tigtog
4 months, 2 weeks ago
in Authoritarianism, Culture, Howardia, Media, Policy and Politics
. 37 Comments

Today’s Age:

THE ABC’s flagship radio current affairs programs — often the source of tension and controversy in the Howard years — have won overwhelming endorsement from a landmark report by an external expert.

An audit of AM, PM and The World Today found they were almost 96% accurate.

[…]

The review, by an expert who reported to the ABC’s director of editorial policies, Paul Chadwick, found 95.3% of items sampled from the three programs were either wholly or substantially accurate for plain facts and were 97.3% accurate on the context of the facts.

Denis Muller, an independent media research specialist and a former associate editor of The Age, devised a method to review a sample of 150 current affairs items from last October.

I’m sure that some will cavil that this audit only covered three radio programs, and thus doesn’t account for the dastardly mind-control powers of Red Kezza on the 7:30 report, but it’s a fine result considering the relentless complaints of bias from the Howard government, and especially the complaints from former Communications Minister Richard Alston against these radio programs in particular.

It would be interesting to see a comparative audit of programs from before the time of Director Scott’s “impartiality” rules (adopted in late 2006) to see whether they have made any fundamental difference to the flagship news programs, or whether the new mandates requiring a “balance” of opposing opinions on any “matter of public contention” have just meant that various opinion programs have subsequently been hijacked by “balance”, no matter how ridiculous and poorly argued some of those “balancing” views might be.

My own suspicion is that the news programs before the new regime would prove to have been just as accurate as in this last audit, while the accuracy of content presented in the opinion shows would prove to have declined drastically since the mandatory “balance” rules were imposed.

Populism and perish!

Published
by
Mark
4 months, 2 weeks ago
in Economics, Government, Howardia and Media
. 24 Comments

Some more comment on the Christian Kerr column I commented on recently comes from Tim Dunlop at Blogocracy, posing the dilemma for the opposition as “populism or perish?”. I actually think that choosing populism will lead to their demise, and possibly for a lot longer than this term.

In Laura Tingle’s column in today’s Fin, she quotes Rod Cameron, who for mine is one of the most insightful people around when it comes to talking about politics. Cameron argues that by flicking the switch to populism and disdaining to justify it with any coherent economic narrative whatsoever, the Liberals are trashing their own brand and committing political suicide. A lot of what they stand for ideologically has never been to the public’s liking (just as Labor ideology doesn’t go down all that well with a lot of voters) but if there’s one thing they have had in their corner, it’s the “economic conservative” image - the reason why Kevin Rudd was so keen to steal their clothes last year.

Too much political commentary assumes that both parties have identical options in political strategy. Continue reading ‘Populism and perish!’

Will “the great immigration debate” take place?

Published
by
Mark
4 months, 2 weeks ago
in Australiana, Climate change, Culture, Economics, Government, Howardia, Immigration, International, Media, Politics, Race and Urbanism
. 188 Comments

… Or have we already had it?

Immigration Minister Senator Chris Evans has called for a “great debate” about immigration.

Possibly because it doesn’t involve leaked emails from Malcolm Turnbull or struggling battlers on 150k losing benefits, coverage of the immigration decisions announced in the budget has been fairly sparse, with this piece by Paul Kelly something of an exception to the rule.

The long and short of it is that skilled migration and temporary working visas have been lifted to almost 300 000 a year, with more on the way. Add in international students and those on some forms of tourist visa and you have a very large boost to Australia’s workforce.

Kelly’s correct to write that Howard lifted the migration quota over his term in office, but doesn’t add that he played the politics of it through distracting attention with all sorts of “look! over there! Muslims!” scares. I’m not sure I agree with Kelly that there’s going to be a particular political risk for Labor here. I suspect that Paul Keating took the brunt of it, with his “embedding in Asia” rhetoric and his economic case for migration a long time before the perception of the need for more migration to build a skills base and competitiveness really kicked in. Opposition to the changing face of Australia washed out of the national psyche, largely, one could argue hopefully, with the receding of the Hansonite wave of protest and indignation. John Howard may have had his face turned towards the past in this regard in his last years of office.

We probably should be having a debate on the ecological consequences of increased infrastructure spending for a bigger population (among other climate change related impacts), and on the fact that while “unemployment” might be still near record lows, there are still a lot of people either underemployed or locked out of the labour market for reasons that are fairly intractable to short term policy influence, but I doubt we’ll be seeing much of either.

Continue reading ‘Will “the great immigration debate” take place?’

Opposition Budget politics, 2008 style

Published
by
Mark
4 months, 3 weeks ago
in Government, Howardia, Media and Parenting
. 15 Comments

It was interesting to read the acres of newsprint devoted to Budget specials today for two reasons - one to note that so much of the “interest group” reaction is typical - one headline - “teachers say more is needed for schools” - probably writes itself, and could be run nearly every year. That’s not to have a go at the teachers, but it might be more to the point if the media spent more time on doing specialist analyses of each portfolio (as New Matilda has been doing for a few) and less on highlighting understandable (from the point of view of those concerned) calls for more spending. An assessment of priorities and discrete policy initiatives might be more informative than a de facto assumption that the cake is of infinite dimensions - which it would almost have to be if every interest group were placated. In some ways, being Treasurer would be an unenviable task, and as I argued last night, the politics of the budget include a real attempt to persuade people to look at the collective public good rather than “what’s in it for me?”. Obviously people want to understand how they (and policy areas they care about) are affected, but the sort of “thinking” that goes into this sort of nonsense - “Yet again, Generation X gets screwed” - makes me wince, even as a member of said generation (not to mention the factual vacuum contained in that silly little article).

This leads me onto my other observation - the paucity of any reference to any views that the opposition might have. Shadow Ministers were clearly not - on the whole - interested, informed enough or motivated to release anything portfolio specific. So all we got was short shrift - at least in the print media - to the rather inconsistent and confused bleatings of Malcolm Turnbull and Brendan Nelson, who according to Trevor Cook, looked like he was “on life support” on the telly. A couple of paras on average across the two 30 something page budget liftouts I read. So, how do the attention deprived respond?

By musing (threatening might be far too strong a word) about blocking the changes to the baby bonus in the Senate. Continue reading ‘Opposition Budget politics, 2008 style’

A balanced budget

Published
by
Mark
4 months, 3 weeks ago
in Economics, Government, Howardia, International and Markets
. 2 Comments

Since I was concentrating on the politics of the budget in my post last night, it’s worth pointing out that there’s an interesting take on Wayne Swan’s first budget from market economist (and former Keating adviser) Barry Hughes at New Matilda this morning. It’s confirmation of some of the early reaction from other economists on Lateline Business that the policy settings in the budget are basically neutral, giving the government (and the Reserve Bank) wriggle room to respond if things take a quick downward turn in an environment of almost unprecedented international instability. But it’s worth remembering one thing. Unlike the previous government, this one actually does have a macro-economic policy:

Financial markets will be thankful for small mercies. Who knows what Howard and Costello might have done? Perhaps they might have finally learnt some economics. But on their past form they would have continued to party. Keeping a budget surplus around one per cent of GDP would have left high single digits of more billions of new spending and tax cuts. And financial markets will also be impressed that the ALP has been able to slot in its new spending without blowing any valves.

Think about that as you assess the economic value (if any) of anything Malcolm Turnbull and Brendan Nelson have to say about the “Labor budget for a nation”.

Update: Also in New Matilda, Ben Eltham on the rhetoric and the reality of budget cutting, an assessment of the “Education Revolution” and the infrastructure fund… And somehow an AFL metaphor slipped into the title of my contribution to the budget discussion the morning after.

Post-parliamentary daze

Published
by
Mercurius
4 months, 3 weeks ago
in Howardia and Politics
. 13 Comments

Well, the rumour-mill is off and chugging again that Alexander Downer is about to quit, and some have drawn a similar inference about Peter Costello from his antics in a Budget-day interview.

At times like this, one could almost - almost - regret that the ALP turned away from Communism. Just think, it would be off to the salt mines now for Dolly and Tip!

But seriously, what will the former triumvirate of Howard, Costello and Downer do with their long retirements?

Continue reading ‘Post-parliamentary daze’

Lazy Sunday! (Keating! The Musical edition)

Published
by
Mark
5 months ago
in Brisbane, Culture, Food, Howardia, Life and Politics
. 28 Comments

Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!

Unfortunately, I forgot to recharge my camera battery, so no pics this week. We’ll have to content ourselves with an image from Keating! The Musical, which I took my mum to see last night for Mothers’ Day (she’s a big PJK fan). Apparently, I’m not alone, as Paul Keating also took his mum to see it. I’d be really interested to know what non-Labor folks would think about it. They’d have been lonely in the audience at the QPAC Playhouse last night, surrounded by a gallery of Labor luminaries from Anna Bligh down. It’s also interesting to speculate whether a hypothetical Howard! The Musical would get much of a run - and I’m not sure Terry Serio would be cast in the eponymous role - his portrayal of Howard was cruel in its verisimilitude. Alexander Downer, in Rocky Horror style fishnets and corset, came off much better.

I also enjoyed catching up with a couple of friends who’d been at the matinee for a drink at The Point on Grey Street at Southbank first, always a good spot for a glass of wine or a cocktail, and while I’m doing recommendations, I went round to some other friends’ place for dinner on their back deck on Friday night and ate a very scrumptious lasagne concocted out of the pages of the Veganomicon - best. cookbook. eva! Today? Well, it’s been a lazy Sunday!

Howard preferred PM on economic management. 4 Eva!

Published
by
Kim
5 months ago
in Government, Howardia, Media, Politics and Polls
. 44 Comments

Howard’s talking again.

“Be proud of what we’ve achieved - don’t take any cheek from the other side.”

Andrew Elder wrote an interesting post the other day critiquing Gerard Henderson’s critique, and pointing to a fundamental problem the Liberals have:

The Liberals and Nationals do not take the intellectual debate seriously, which is why it is left to pinheads like Miranda Devine, Tony Abbott, Janet Albrechtsen or Gerard Henderson to carry the (empty) can of rightwing intellectualism. If you really want people to take on the challenge of right-of-centre intellectual development, create an environment conducive to it.

The point’s been made here a number of times that too much political commentary relies on stale analogies with the past, and a complete inability to grasp the challenges of the present. Perhaps that’s because no intellectual work goes into it. The Nelson/Turnbull mob have been talked into the view that they can’t “disown the legacy of the Howard government” lest they lose their advantage on “economic management”. Never mind the fact that ALP polling found last year that when the question was posed as “whom do you trust to manage the economy best for your family?”, Rudd was streets ahead. It’s the distinction between a “beautiful set of numbers” and paying attention to people’s actual financial struggles. In other words, you could simultaneously think the government was keeping the shine on the numbers, but managing the economy for the benefit of big biz and the top end of town. Howard understood that back in about 1996.

But the Libs are now stuck in some Shanahan of a universe where whatever wording Newspoll uses is gospel. Continue reading ‘Howard preferred PM on economic management. 4 Eva!’

Under the radar

Published
by
Kim
5 months ago
in Activism, Howardia, Immigration and Media
. 29 Comments

… Maybe Kevin08 is one of those tricky housemates who tries to keep a low profile while attempting to snatch the big prize by doing nefarious work out of the gaze of the cameras.

I probably can’t stretch the Big Brother analogy too far, but one of the big concerns I had about the election of the Rudd government was that the momentum for campaigning around a whole range of vital issues would stall. That’s partly I think because elections provide a convenient end point - if you were horrified by what Howard was doing on refugees (for instance), the most immediate and pressing issue was to vote him out of the House. But it would be a fatal error to assume that’s the ball game.

Margaret Simons has a story in Crikey today reporting on the deep concerns the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre has about the exercise of Senator Chris Evans’ ministerial discretion on asylum seeker claims since the election. 42 claims have been processed, and 41 rejected, a 97.6% rejection rate which is the highest it’s been since 2001 (the year of the Tampa.) According to Pamela Curr of the ASRC, one of the claims rejected has been that of a woman who escaped captivity while her “owners” were in Australia on holiday - she was being held against her will as a sex slave. She was originally from Africa, and had been trafficked to the Middle East.

This may not be the intent of the Government. Continue reading ‘Under the radar’

George Megalogenis and Kevin Rudd: Anti-culture warriors

Published
by
Mark
5 months ago
in Elections, Howardia, Policy, Politics and Sociology
. 20 Comments

I’m quite the fan of George Megalogenis’ journalism, for a number of reasons. Unlike too much of the instant analysis which passes for political commentary which almost always sticks to a singular press gallery script, Megalogenis has an eye both for longer term political trends, and a desire to connect psephological and political observation with social research. My caveat would be that his matching of census data with electorate level voting patterns is methodologically flawed in two ways. Correlation doesn’t imply causation, and the selection of particular variations doesn’t make them necessarily independent or even intervening variables. But, nevertheless, Megalogenis does two things which are praiseworthy - he tries to tell a bigger story than the horse race, and tries to relate the horse race to bigger changes. That’s actually something Paul Kelly used to do well, albeit with a big dash of neoliberal orthodoxy colouring his interpretations. These days Kelly appears to have well passed his use by date, so it’s good to see Megalogenis has taken the step from newspaper punditry to book level analysis.

But for all that, if you’ve already read his The Longest Decade, I wouldn’t recommend spending another 30 bucks for the revised edition, which promises to take the story up to the Rudd victory. You could save your pennies and click this link, because the essence of the few chapters Megalogenis has tacked on to the end of his story of the rivalry between Howardian and Keatingite versions of Australia is summed up in one relatively short blog post.

But there is one insight in the new bits of The Longest Decade that Megalogenis hasn’t excerpted in the shorter short version, which is a pity because I think it’s key to the difference between politics John Howard style and politics Kevin Rudd style. Continue reading ‘George Megalogenis and Kevin Rudd: Anti-culture warriors’

Haneef blame cage match continues…

Published
by
Robert Merkel
5 months, 1 week ago
in Crime, Federal Elections, Howardia, Security and Terrorism
. 16 Comments

Former Howard Government minister Kevin Andrews and AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty seem to be continuing their attempts to blame each other for the Haneef debacle. You’ll recall a couple of days ago that a “source”, most probably Keelty or somebody close to him, claimed that Andrews had cancelled Haneef’s visa without bothering to tell the AFP. Now we have the bite back from Andrews. From the Oz:

FORMER immigration minister Kevin Andrews had no idea of powerful evidence of Mohamed Haneef’s innocence when he controversially revoked the visa of the then terrorism suspect last year. Mr Andrews will tell the Rudd government-ordered inquiry into the bungled case, which opens today, that Australian Federal Police did not inform him of evidence debunking allegations against Dr Haneef’s second-cousin Sabeel Ahmed - allegations that had led to the subsequent terrorism charge against the Gold Coast doctor.

These guys were supposed to be in charge of protecting us from Scary Terryrists - one, of course, still is. Thank your favourite deity that there seems to be so few actual Scary Terryrists in Australia, or we’d really be in trouble…

Islam and the secular state

Published
by
Kim
5 months, 1 week ago
in Education, Howardia, Politics, Religion and Terrorism
. 22 Comments

In comments on my thread about the beat up on the Griffith “madrassas” and subsequent own goal from Vice-Chancellor Ian O’Connor, Andrew Bartlett made a very telling point:

The sick irony is that The Australian’s anti-Muslim fear-mongering is being directed at an Institute that has sought to do precisely what heaps of hectoring politicians and pontificating media pundits (including a number from The Australian) have demanded Muslims do - get engaged in public debate, build links with the wider community and seek to honestly confront some of the challenges of Islam in the modern world. And yet they are prepared to run major pieces, most of them containing gross distortions, five days running, attacking this Unit despite not any evidence that it is actually promoting Wahhabism.

It’s very true that we heard an awful lot in the Howard years about the need to encourage “moderate Islam”. I don’t cavil with that, but I think it’s based on a fundamental misconception - that pluralism doesn’t exist in Islam, but rather there’s one essence of the faith that can be clung to either more fervently or less strictly. That ties in with all the claims that Islam is violent, etc. What it does is completely efface the diversity within Islam and Islamic communities, and actually plays into the hands of the Wahhabi mob who want to impose a unitary version (I almost wrote “unitarian” - heh!) of their views and reinvent Islam as a monolith. Perhaps The Australian should run a “shock! horror!” expose on itself. All that is a prologue to a link to a post at The Immanent Frame, written by John Bowen on Harvard Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na‘im’s new book Islam and the Secular State.

Continue reading ‘Islam and the secular state’