Where have all the Leaders gone?

Where have all the Leaders gone?

By John Kelly on April 1, 2014 • ( 0 )

John Stuart Mill
once wrote that not all conservatives are stupid, but most people who
are stupid are conservative. That is probably because they are afraid of
what they don’t know. People seek guidance at every turn and accept the
time honoured practices and formulae of the past; they view such a
strategy as safe. In short, they don’t know any better and don’t want
to. They just want to be reassured. Conservative politicians are good at
offering that. It’s politically clever but it’s not leadership.


Prior to the time when Gough Whitlam came to power I was apolitical.
Back around the late 1950s my parents were DLP voters which was hardly
surprising coming as they did from an Irish-Catholic background. They
thought they were supporting a Catholic breakaway party resisting what
was perceived as an unhealthy communist influence within the Labor
party.


This was the era of Bob Santamaria, the National Civic Council and
Archbishop Daniel Mannix. Santamaria was depressing fellow who saw
danger at every corner. If he wasn’t paranoid about communists, it was
trade unions, sexual deviants or left wing university students. He even
advocated the abolition of the ABC. But it was a different time and
mindset from what we value today and in the end not a lot of what he
espoused or campaigned for, ever came to pass. What Tony Abbott saw in
him is unclear other than that of an anti-communist Catholic zealot but,
I suspect Abbott still clings to the image of what he thought the man
was. Daniel Mannix was of similar mind to Santamaria but he went
further. He misused his position as Archbishop of Melbourne and told
Catholics that if they voted for Labor they would be committing a mortal
sin.


So,
in my first voting foray in 1963 I followed my parents lead and voted
DLP. That continued until 1972 when Labor gained power after 23 years in
opposition. Mannix was dead and the communist influence in the party
had been marginalized and the Coalition looked tired and lacking of a
vision for the future. I thought Whitlam was a breath of fresh air. He
ended conscription (of which I had been a part) and brought home the
remaining troops from Vietnam and began reforming the education system;
he socialized health and encouraged reform on some of the more sensitive
moral issues of the day.


Labor, under Whitlam, had a vision and it seemed that we were heading
down a more enlightened path. But, they seemed not to understand
economics very well and inflation and interest rates were taking their
toll. The coalition smelt blood and rejected several bills in the
senate. This was new to the baby boomers and to those of us who were
part of the silent generation. The government seemed not to be able to
govern. Whitlam decided to go back to the people in 1974 and ask for a
fair go. The people said okay, but fewer voted for them compared with
1972.


From
that point on, the coalition was relentless in its efforts to stop the
government from functioning. Inflation and interest rates continued to
soar and, in what I viewed as disrespect for the democratic process, the
coalition decided to block supply. This demonstrated to me that the
Liberal party was more interested in governing than they were in
democracy. Their actions precipitated the Governor-General dismissing
the government, installing a care-taker prime minister, Malcolm Fraser,
and we had another election in1975. Whitlam and Labor lost in a
landslide. It was humiliating. Nothing that happened subsequently
convinced me that the actions of the conservatives were justified.
Indeed, it was their own economic mismanagement under the then
treasurer, John Howard that saw them thrown out seven years later.


Then came the Hawke/Keating years when the economic parameters we
used for decades underwent major reforms to give us what we have today.


Having seen and experienced the benefits of Labor’s reforms over the
past thirty years, I have come to view the Liberal party with great
suspicion. They appear to lack a moral compass, preferring to ride
whatever train would take them to government and keep them there. They
appear not to have a vision for the future, preferring to govern for
today and not worry about tomorrow. They appear uninterested in shifting
from the accepted norms of the day or ever question some of the time
honoured traditions of western society. Is it any wonder then that their
principal support comes from the more conservative echelons of a white
middle-class Anglo-Saxon mindset.


With
such a limited vision what chance does Australia have of ever moving
forward under their watch? The manner in which they approach issues such
as health, education, cutting edge technology, climate control, asylum
for refugees, drug law reform as well as working class and minority
rights are all testament to a party that is more concerned with staying
in government than in reforming outdated social attitudes. Their
obsession for frugal, fiscal management masks their financial flaws and
underlines their belief that if the people are happy with the state of
their hip pocket, that is all they need to worry about to stay in power.
It is a sound political philosophy but it is not leadership.


That brings us to the present day. We put this government in power
and they are, therefore, a reflection of us. So much of what politicians
tell us comes from information that focus groups tell them. Over the
years I have witnessed some interesting performances by a variety of
politicians on both sides. Some have leadership qualities superior to
others and I have often thought that the wrong person was leading the
country. Leaders today get elected on the basis of three-word slogans;
they become the people’s choice for the time being. They use catchy
little phrases to attract uninformed voters. They borrow most of them
from past, equally unimpressive leaders and have nothing original to
contribute. With Tony Abbott, this is one such time.


But today, they all seem to stand or fall down under the weight of a
national media that is more relentless than anything we experienced back
in the days of the DLP. As long as the media continue to call the shots
on image and visual performance of our politicians, we will always get
what we deserve, and those with real leadership quality will be left on
the sidelines.

The dark practice

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The dark practice

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My Country! A poem for our time...

My Country! A poem for our time…

By rossleighbrisbane on March 30, 2014 • 

I love a sunburnt country

A land of dames and knights,

Of rugged radio shock jocks

Who tell us of our rights.

I love her racist free speech

Now we have no 18C

Her bigots do have rights, you know,

The great white land for me.

  I love our English PM 

  Who tells us what to think

  On tax and debt and Labor 

  And how his doesn’t stink!

  Our trees are made for chopping 

  Our seas are made quite deep

  Just because there’s dumping - 

  No reason to lose sleep!

A resource rich mine country, 

Which makes our country grand

All you who would now tax this, 

You will not understand 

Though our Earth holds many minerals

And there’s oil in our seas

Unless we own a company,

We have no right to these!

  Core of my heart, my country! 

  No Holdens, Ansett, Ford,  

  When companies die on Liberals’ watch

  We see these things ignored

  But lose a hundred jobs when Labor’s in, 

  We know just who to name:

  The papers make it front page news 

  The PM is to blame!

I love a sunburnt country

A land of knights and dames,

Of Andrew Bolt’s hurt feelings

And all his counterclaims

When people say our history

Shouldn’t always make us proud -

He’ll say free speech is relative

And some people are too loud.

Dam(n) the nation, full speed ahead!

Dam(n) the nation, full speed ahead!

By Kaye Lee on March 29, 2014 • 

In
2011, Gina Rinehart flew Barnaby Joyce to India in a private jet, to
watch the granddaughter of her business partner marry in front of 10,000
guests. Three months later, the GVK conglomerate bought a majority
stake in the billionaire’s ”Alpha” coalmine in Queensland’s Galilee
Basin for $US1.26 billion.


In November 2012, Mrs Rinehart published a book called “Northern Australia and then some”,
calling for the development of the North and the establishment of a
Northern Special Economic Zone (SEZ) with lower taxes and a reduced
regulatory burden. The publisher’s summary of the book states:

“The world is full of areas where we have beggars sitting
in mountains of untapped ‘gold’. Rinehart’s message is a call to
release the untapped human and economic potential through respect of the
human right to free enterprise and private property.”

It sounds uncomfortably like Gina wants to abolish Native title so she can have unfettered access to those “mountains of gold”.


In February 2013, the Coalition leaked a discussion paper called Developing Northern Australia: A 2030 Vision
which very closely echoed the views expressed by Gina in her book. Tony
Abbott called for a “national imagination” to take advantage of the
“enormous agricultural potential” of the Top End, including harnessing
the “bountiful supply of water”.


He then travelled to Kununurra to stand on the wall of Australia’s
largest dam and further discuss a one-third expansion of the Ord River
Irrigation Scheme. His focus included “natural resource development in
liquefied natural gas, mining and agribusiness” – some key users of
water – with little mention of truly utilising natural advantages of the
north.


It was ridiculed by Labor and the Greens, discredited by scientists, and generally dismissed as an ill-conceived thought bubble.


Tony Bourke said

”They say that they want to use them to avoid drought,
they want to use them to avoid flood and they want to use them for hydro
power. Now, if you want to avoid drought, you need to manage a dam that
is always full. If you want to avoid floods, you need to manage a dam
that is constantly empty . . . if you want to manage it for hydro it has
to be constantly flowing.”

Gina Rinehart is part of an organisation called Australians for
Northern Development and Economic Vision (ANDEV). They describe
themselves this way:

“ANDEV is made up of individuals and businesses in
Australia demanding that our government welcome investment and provide
economic vision for the country’s future. We want to unleash the
potential of North Australia by getting government out of the way.”

In response to the Coalition’s paper, they revealed that they, in
conjunction with the IPA, had been working on the exact same idea – go
figure. On the same day that the leaked paper was first reported, ANDEV
published a media release saying:

“The Coalition’s draft discussion paper on water
management, reported in today’s media, is a welcome recognition of the
important role dams could play in revolutionising Northern Australia’s
economy, according to the Institute of Public Affairs.


“Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision (ANDEV)
have been calling for the creation of dams for over two years and it is
refreshing for a major party to finally acknowledge the important role
they can play in driving development in Northern Australia,” said Dom
Talimanidis, Director of the joint ANDEV/IPA North Australia Project.”

They go on to say that

“The Coalition’s Draft Discussion Paper, Developing
Northern Australia: A 2030 Vision received widespread support in the
days after it was reported in the media. The Business Spectator praised
the Discussion Paper’s vision and foresight here and here. The paper
also received support from many groups in Northern Australia, including
the Cairns Chamber of Commerce and Mt Isa Mayor and former State Labor
MP The Hon. Cr Tony McGrady AM. The Daily Telegraph’s editorial noted
America’s economic growth was driven by westward expansion and questions
why Australia can’t achieve something similar developing the North.”

Notable for their absence from this group of advocates was anyone
with a scientific or environmental qualification. Shortly after, the
idea seemed to fizzle out under a barrage of expert criticism.


In April 2013, Barnaby Joyce and Gina Rinehart were both guests at the IPA’s 70^th
birthday bash. Mrs Rinehart later contributed $50,000 to Mr Joyce’s
campaign to enter the House of Representatives, attended his election
after-party, flew to Canberra to hear his maiden speech, and afterwards
invited a small group of Coalition friends for drinks in her private
hotel suite. Aside from Mr Joyce, these included some of Mrs Rinehart’s
closest political friends, the Speaker Bronwyn Bishop and Liberal Party
senators Cory Bernardi and Michaelia Cash.


Ever ready to push his benefactor’s barrow, we hear yesterday that

“FEDERAL Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce has put dams
back on the agenda by unveiling a Commonwealth ministerial working group
to consider new options.”

The idea of developing the north is not new. The first Commonwealth
parliamentary inquiry into the development of northern Australia was
held in 1912. In 1934, J. A. Gilruth, published a “Confidential Report on the Northern Territory of Australia”.
He believed that statements about the opportunities being neglected in
the north could be traced to either (1) those who had read only the
biased laudatory accounts, but wished for some‐one else to be the
pioneers; (2) those who had an interest in land or a lease and wished to
realise a capital gain; and (3) business people to whom any influx of
population means a profit.


Tom Rayner, who works for Charles Darwin University as a Research
Leader in the Northern Research Futures Collaborative Research Network,
had this to say:

“As a nation, we have witnessed similar clashes between
commodities, communities and conservation in the Murray-Darling Basin.
As scientists, we have documented the effects of water extraction on
floodplains, fish and forests. As farmers, we have experienced
diminishing terms of trade and a transition away from the traditional
family farm. As taxpayers, we have funded a multi-billion dollar rescue
mission aimed at improving river health.


Now, staring down the barrel of a decade of rapid transformation, we
confront a critical decision: “Is this a future we want to repeat in
northern Australia?”


We know that dams damage rivers – there are literally hundreds of
scientific studies detailing effects on connectivity, water quality and
biodiversity. It is odd that, at a time when people elsewhere are
discussing dam removal, we might want to build more.”

In 2009, the Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce produced a
report on the potential impact of new development in northern Australia
on water balance and quality, the environment, existing water users and
the broader community.


The report points out that the rainfall received each year already
supports a wide range of uses. These include unique aquatic and
terrestrial ecosystems; recreational and commercial fisheries and
tourism that are based upon them; a range of largely non‐consumptive
Indigenous uses; and consumptive use by irrigated agriculture, stock and
domestic and mining. Water is critical to each of these uses, and
increased consumptive use will involve a degree of trade‐off between new
uses and the range of existing consumptive and non‐consumptive uses.


Conserving and accessing surface water for consumptive use is highly
constrained by difficulties in impoundment and groundwater abstraction
from one point may influence surface water flow and function at another,
and vice versa.


The report also highlights the dangers to existing industries.
Tourism, for example, contributes about $2,800 m p.a. to the northern
Australian economy, and relies heavily on the largely pristine land and
water of the north. Extractive industries such as commercial fishing
(>$160 m) are heavily water dependent non‐consumptive uses of water.
Opportunities available to these industries would be curtailed by
significant consumptive water use or landscape modification. Changes to
the natural resource base also impact the value of the Indigenous hybrid
economy, upon which up to a third of the north’s population may depend.


Cultural life in northern Australia is extraordinarily dependent on
the region’s high natural values. These, in turn, emanate from the
intact landscapes and relatively undisturbed flows of the north’s
waterways. Development can directly reduce these values by depleting
water, reducing water quality or by changing the natural flow of water
in the landscape; all of which impact aquatic, marine and terrestrial
environments. Development can also indirectly and inadvertently impact
these. Roads, for example, can disturb the flow of water across the
landscape, altering connections between waterways and floodplains that
support communities of vegetation, fish, birds and mammals. The impacts
of development on the natural environment are varied, and many are
persistent and difficult to correct.


In this, like so many other of this government’s decisions, we seem
to be ignoring research and the lessons of the past. A new study from
Oxford University has found that the vast majority of large dams around
the globe are unprofitable undertakings as a result of exorbitant cost
overruns, with actual costs exceeding original estimates by around 96
per cent on average in real terms.


“We find that even before accounting for negative impacts on human
society and environment, the actual construction costs of large dams are
too high to yield a positive return,” the study said.


Already, the climate in the north is hot and alternates seasonally
between arid and very wet. Small areas of arable soils are interspersed
with large areas of land suitable only for grazing. The low fertility of
soils and the high risks of climatic adversity (floods and cyclones)
are major constraints to crop production. Management systems to prevent
soil erosion are critical due to the high intensity of rainfall.


Climate change will lead to sea level rise and potentially greater
storm surges which will impact on coastal settlements, infrastructure
and ecosystems. Some areas will be vulnerable to riverine flooding and
more intense cyclonic activity.


In Darwin the number of days over 35 degrees Celsius is expected to
increase from 11 per year currently experienced to up to 69 by 2030 and
up to 308 by 2070 without global action to reduce emissions. Coupled
with the extremely high humidity that Darwin experiences during the wet
season, higher temperatures are expected to adversely affect levels of
human comfort.


Projections indicate there may be an increase in the proportion of
tropical cyclones in the more intense categories, with a decrease in the
total number of cyclones. For example, the number of category 3 to 5
cyclones is projected to increase, and by 2030 there may be a 60 per
cent increase in intensity of the most severe storms, and a 140 per cent
increase by 2070.


In these days of “financial distress” when we are being warned to
expect a “tough budget”, it is somewhat incongruous that Barnaby Joyce
is prepared to spend $30+ billion building dams to fulfil Gina
Rinehart’s demands to develop the North, regardless of the countless
studies that warn of the non-viablility of the idea and the damage it
would cause.


The paradigm of the “empty north” was derived from colonialist
thinking and rejection of Indigenous tenure.  The idea of making it the
food bowl for Asia, while ignoring the environmental and climactic
challenges, could make it a very expensive exercise in futility. I know
mining requires a lot of water but have you really thought this through?
Is it too much to expect you to listen to scientists and to read the
reports that have already been done?  Messing with water can be a very
dangerous thing and you probably need someone other than Gina to advise
you on this.

Introducing the new "ABC free" AUSTRALIA... now with extra ignorance, selfishness and cruelty

Introducing the new “ABC free” AUSTRALIA… now with extra ignorance, selfishness and cruelty

By Letitia McQuade on March 29, 2014 • ( 6 )

(Or why we need the ABC)





Since the coalition’s Murdoch lead victory in last September’s
federal election there has been a palpable shift in our national
narrative. The images of a sun burnt country forged by convict sweat and
hard working immigrants is fading fast, and in its wake a new story is
being fashion.


It is a tale of well intentioned, hard working corporations, (who really just want to keep us all employed),
being squeezed by draconian regulations and pushed offshore by rampant,
out of control wages. It’s the chronicle of a government being driven
into the red, not by cutting taxes for the wealthy and turning a blind
eye to the corporate “offshoring” of profits (read “legal” tax evasion),
but by those lazy unemployed/disabled bludgers on welfare, and their
“anti business” environmentalist buddies. It’s the saga of nation
overrun by so called “illegals” intent on subverting our immigration
laws for the sole purpose of suckling endlessly on OUR government teat, (Ironically most of whom are coming here LEGALLY as refugees).


These new LNP/Murdoch sanctioned mantras are repeated so often, and
with such earnest conviction it seems people are finding it pretty damn
hard not to buy into it. There are even those in the Labor party who
seem quite happy to have joined the chorus.


I hear it everywhere I go, everyday Aussies out there parroting the
coalition’s vitriolic hatred for anything even vaguely related to the
unions, the unemployed, the environment, asylum seekers, disability
pensioners, ABC lefties, foreign aid, etc.


So why all the negative jawboning?


Well, if you read the papers Australia has, up until our recent
electoral liberation, been a nation under siege by left wing “special
interests”! Because of this evil leftist scourge we have been forced to
endure such indignities as the 2nd highest standard of living in the
world (after Norway), the planets largest houses, one of the
worlds best/most affordable health care systems, quality education,
disposable incomes such that we can afford to be the be the worlds
leading per capita emitters of of CO2, and the dubious privilege of
ranking 69th in our per capita refugee intake (49th in overall terms).





When you lay it out like that it’s easy to see why we have all been
so unhappy, we have been really suffering! Clearly something had to be
done.


But seriously, something has happened to us. If you listen to the
rhetoric, it would seem we are no longer a nation that strives for the
fair go, but rather one that values our own perceived self interest
above all other concerns.


I scratch my head and wonder, how did this happen? When did Australia
become a place that embraces the social and political agendas of the
most ignorant, selfish and cruel among us?


It wasn’t that long ago that Australian public opinion was DEEPLY
CONCERNED with the environmental legacy we are leaving for our children.
As recently as last year people seemed happy to talk about the scandal
that is corporate tax evasion. There was even a time, in living memory,
when refugees that came here by boat were welcomed with a broad smile
and a hand up.


So what happened? How did the social and moral imperative get
banished from our national narrative? Did it happen by accident, or by
design? And if by design, then by who’s hand?


And then there’s the bigger questions. Exactly who’s interests are
served by these apparent changes in our attitudes? And is anyone
standing against the tide?


The sculpting of public opinion has a long history and there are many
tools, such as fear and scapegoating, that have been used to great
effect through out the ages. “Group think”, for example is an
extraordinarily powerful weapon, (after all who wants to run outside the herd, everyone knows how dangerous that is). The truth however has never been a necessary component when seeking to sway the prevailing sentiments of the masses.


William James, the father of modern Psychology notably once quipped
“There’s nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people
will not believe it”. This rather glib observation was most infamously
put into practice by the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, (a man on whom the power of the press was most certainly not lost), who used the simple “lie, repeat, lie, repeat, lie, repeat” principle to whip up the greatest genocidal frenzy in history.


More recently Goebbel’s philosophical musing “Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play”
has been turned on it’s head by the irrepressible Rupert Murdoch, our
prodigal puppeteer d’jour, who, like some gruesomely wizened “whack a
mole” has popped up here again to lead his relentless political cheer
squad for which ever side will acquiesce to do his bidding. It would
appear that, in spite of his meddling hand being beaten down in UK and
much of the USA now being hip to the fact that “FOX NEWS” is an
oxymoron, if you hand the old boy a monopoly he’ll show you he’s still
got it.





One rather startling revelation that came out of the UK’s recent Levinson enquiry into press standards
, was was that Murdoch had actively lobbied former UK prime minister
John Major to change the Torries policy on the EU, lest he engage in
willfully biased coverage in order to “hand the election” to Blair’s New
Labor (a party/man seemingly more willing to do his bidding).
Major refused to allow Murdoch to dictate policy and was duly slammed by
the Murdoch press, who came out swinging hard for Blair.


So in spite of the Torries having had a clear lead in the polls up until Major’s “disagreement” with Murdoch, the Torries, (much like Gillard),
found the power of a vindictive, inflammatory press mobilised against
them simply too great to overcome. Blair was elected and the rest, as
they say, is history.


While the Brits were duly outraged, you would think something so
blatantly corrupt as seeking to dictate government policy in return for
favourable press would raise a dubious brow from someone back here in
Aus; but much like the “March in March” (a mysteriously unnoticed gathering of over 100,000 Australia wide) somehow it failed to be deemed newsworthy enough to make any significant impression on the Australian mainstream media.


So… If a media baron is dictating government policy in return for
press support, but no one ever hears about it, is the political process
actually being subverted? Probably, (but then who has time to worry about such things when we are all so busy hating and punishing refugees).





Or… If a crowd gathers in the city and no one is there to report it,
did it really gather? Maybe it did in the hearts and minds of those who
were there, but for anyone else, or in the archives of history?… Well
maybe not.





We have been told a lot of things recently, (much of it negative),
about everything from the unions to environmentalists, from asylum
seekers to the NBN. And while it’s easy to put a question mark over
anything a politician might say in an effort to popularise their chosen
policy agenda; I can not help but wonder if a press core that is
practically a monopoly, (and known to actively pursue it’s owners personal agendas), is actually telling us the whole truth, or even any small part of it?


Like many others I can’t quite shake the feeling that we’re being fed
a grab bag of skilfully crafted misinformation, half truths and
innuendo designed to direct our hostility toward the poor and
disenfranchised, or anyone out there pushing for a fairer, more
sustainable policy agenda.


According to the official story, Australians are apparently (on average) far richer than we were 10 years ago… but for some rather opaque reason we just don’t feel it.

I can’t help but wonder why that is?


Is it because we feel more entitled than we used to? (If we don’t
have a car, a mobile phone, a laptop, an ipad, a kindle, a 50″ TV,
Foxtel, Quickflix, a yearly overseas holiday, and at least 3 restaurant
meals a week we think we are suffering an intolerable injustice?).


Is it that we are constantly being assaulted by the relentless
negativity of a 24 hour news cycle, telling us that our unfettered
access to “more stuff” is being threatened by the poor and
disenfranchised?


Or maybe it’s that the wealth is only going to the top end of town, and no one else is reaping the benefit?


It’s perfectly understandable that when we are feeling squeezed we
like to have someone to blame, but it is worth asking ourselves, is our
anger being misplaced?


Here we are, literally seething with contempt for refugees, single
mothers, greenies, protesters, students, socialists, the disabled,
lefties, intellectuals and the all those former bank and manufacturing
workers that have now joined the ranks of the unemployed. Meanwhile the
gap between the haves and have nots is at an all time high. Our trusty
government is busy reducing taxes for the top end of town, Corporate
profits are breaking records left and right, (but strangely
corporate tax receipts are not, Google, for example, had revenue of over
$1 billion in Australia in 2012, and yet paid only $74k tax).
CEO’s wages and share options continue to defy gravity, and our banks,
whilst being incredulously profitable, are shipping jobs off shore
faster than you can say “transaction fee”, and so it goes…


*(brings to mind a joke I heard recently: A banker, a Daily
Telegraph reader and a refugee are out to lunch. The waiter puts down a
plate with twelve biscuits on it; the banker takes eleven, nudges the
Telegraph reader and says “hey watch it mate, that refugee wants your
biscuit”)


Everyone knows trickle down economics is bunk, and yet we keep buying into the myth, lauding the lords and kicking the powerless. The cognitive dissonance simply staggering!


So my question is this…Who’s interests does this new hateful
narrative really serve? Murdoch and his buddies in the 1%, or those of
us in the mortgage belt?


Please don’t get me wrong. I am not blaming Murdoch. We all lobby for
our own interests, and why should he be any different. What I am saying
however is that a virtual monopoly concentration of Australia’s media
in any ones hands is dangerous. We need visible, diverse mainstream
media to give a balanced range of views.


We also need some measure of mainstream media presence that is not
driven by profit, or dictated to by advertising revenue and share holder
values. We need a media that is prepared to objectively challenge the
veracity of the story as told to us by Murdoch, (and given the governments proposed changes to section 18c of the racial vilification act this is now more important than ever).


In short, we need our ABC.

Parliament run as 'protection racket' for PM: Labor

Parliament run as 'protection racket' for PM: Labor

Labor takes veiled swipe at Speaker Bronwyn Bishop, says Parliament run as 'protection racket' for Tony Abbott

By political reporter Latika Bourke

Updated
1 hour 38 minutes ago

Photo:
Bronwyn Bishop's rulings have come under attack from the Opposition. (AAP: Daniel Munoz)

Related Story:
Tweet aimed at Speaker prompts review of MPs' social media use

Map:
Australia

Labor says Federal Parliament has descended into a
"protection racket" for Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his ministers, in
a veiled swipe at Liberal Speaker Bronwyn Bishop.

But the
Government says Opposition frontbenchers are on the "verge of bullying"
the Speaker, and is rejecting any assertion that she is biased.

Manager of Opposition Business Tony Burke says the climate in the chamber is "heating up".

"People
are fast losing their patience with a House of Representatives and a
Question Time that looks less like ministers being held to account and
looks more like a protection racket to protect Tony Abbott from ever
having to answer a question," Mr Burke said.

"Some people have remarked to me that the relationship's not going real well.

"The
smirks, the jibes, the different ways that the Parliament has
descended, I don't believe reflect well on this Parliament or this
Government."

But Mr Burke declined to specify who was directing the "smirks" and "jibes" Labor's way.

"I'm not going to be more specific than that, I think everyone knows why," he said.

MPs are forbidden from reflecting on the Speaker outside the chamber.

What do you make of Bronwyn Bishop's performance as Speaker? Has she been impartial? Have your say.

Pyne says Labor's treatment of Speaker 'verging on bullying'

The
Leader of the Government in the House, Christopher Pyne, hit back,
saying Labor has been "rude" to the Speaker and is on the verge of
"bullying" Bronwyn Bishop.

"The truth is Bronwyn Bishop is doing a very, very good job," Mr Pyne said.

"My advice to the Opposition is to stop being as rude as they are to the Speaker.

"I've never seen such an ill-mannered rude group of people to the person who is in the chair."

Mr
Pyne singled out Mr Burke and fellow Labor frontbench MPs Mark Dreyfus
and Anthony Albanese as speaking rudely to the Speaker.

"It is verging on bullying," he said.

"Now
I know Bronwyn Bishop pretty well, she is a pretty tough character and
I'm sure she can take it, but that doesn't mean that the Labor Party
should be allowed to get away with the incredible rudeness that they
demonstrate in the chamber."

The Speaker has denied Labor MPs the
opportunity to raise points of order at times ruling them invalid before
they have even been aired.

Asked if that was fair, Mr Pyne said the Labor Party raises the same points of order to disrupt Question Time.

"I think she's extremely fair and reasonable," he said.

Topics:
federal-parliament,
parliament,
government-and-politics,
australia

Freedom to speak badly: one rule for protestors, another for Bolt?

Freedom to speak badly: one rule for protestors, another for Bolt?

By The AIMN Network on March 24, 2014 • 

Image courtesy of the heraldsun.com.au

Andrew Bolt’s racial vilification case and the government’s
subsequent hasty threat to repeal section 18C of the Racial
Discrimination Act has placed ‘freedom of speech’ at the forefront of
political debate. But its importance is always overlooked, or shunned,
when it’s those of the Left side of politics who are exercising it. The
media’s response to March in March rallies is an obvious case, writes Jennifer Wilson.


Peter van Onselen (pictured) devotes almost an entire page in the Australian
this morning (paywalled, sorry) to complaining about the “unedifying”
display of bad manners by some protestors who took part in the March in
March rallies, comparing them with the infamously abusive banners held
aloft by the three hundred or so activists who took part Alan Jones’s
2011 Convoy of no Confidence against Julia Gillard and her Labor
government.


I would appreciate someone drawing up a comparison of the two
situations, given my impression that the number of participants in the
Jones rally carrying offensive placards constituted a far greater
percentage of the whole than those in the March in March rallies.


As van Onselen concedes, in the Jones protest virulent expressions of
rage and hatred were legitimised by the presence of leading politicians
photographed under the placards. No such validation took place of the
relatively few offensive banners on display during March in March.


“Calling a conservative a fascist and portraying his image to
replicate Hitler is deliberately designed to undermine their ideological
positioning in the same way that calling a woman a ‘bitch’ or ‘witch’
carries clear sexist intent,”  van Onselen states, in his comparison of
the two situations.


I would not so readily presume an equivalence between sexist intent,
and the desire to critique, albeit with a degree of hyperbole, an
ideology. Sexism attacks the woman for nothing other than being a woman.
Describing Abbott as “fascist” in no way attacks his gender, and is
merely commentary on the manner in which he is perceived to enact his
conservatism.


Placards claiming that the Abbott government is “illegitimate” are
not abusive, offensive or threatening, rather they are simply wrong, and
likely being employed as payback for the years of the LNP opposition
equally inaccurately describing the Gillard government as
“illegitimate.” What is apparent is that there are hot heads and wrong
heads on both the conservative and Labor side of politics. This should
not come as a surprise to anyone.


Along with Tim Wilson, Human Rights Commissioner for Freedom, (I’m
sorry, I don’t know what that title means) van Onselen is disturbed not
at the exercise of freedom of speech demonstrated by both rallies, but
at the ill-mannered, impolite, potentially violent and “irresponsible”
speech used by a small number of participants in their signage. A
similar rabid element is guilty of foully derailing many otherwise
useful Twitter discussions, claims van Onselen, quite rightly in some
instances, though there are sensitive souls renowned for “rage quitting”
Twitter when they confuse disagreement with abuse.


Van Onselen and Wilson’s desire to see public speech free from
offensive, insulting and at times threatening expression is shared by
many people, but quite how to achieve that remains a mystery. Bad speech
must be countered by good speech, Wilson has asserted, however, taking
the case of Andrew Bolt as an example,
it’s difficult to see how someone with a large public platform such as
Bolt, or fellow shock jocks Alan Jones, or Ray Hadley can be challenged
by the people they offend and insult, who rarely have an equivalent
public platform from which to counter their attacker’s bad speech with
good. It is for this reason we have legislation intended to protect
people from racial vilification, for example, the very legislation Mr Wilson is now intent on seeing repealed, as he believes it interferes with the absolute freedom of speech he appears to favour.


I can see Wilson’s point, however, as long as there are more powerful
enunciators of bad speech with large platforms than there are good,
perhaps we need other precautionary measures.


I couldn’t help but wonder, as I read the article, what van Onselen
and Wilson would make of public demonstrations in other countries,
Mexico perhaps, where I witnessed protests in which politicians were
represented by enormous papier-mache figures with grossly exaggerated
sexual organs, accompanied by banners that claimed they fucked both dogs
and their mothers and ate children. Nobody saw any cause for offence.
Compared to such robust expression, the complaints seem rather prim.


Amusingly, van Onselen concludes his article with the reminder that
“Protest is as an important part of democracy as are institutions
designed to uphold democracy, but only when practised within the spirit
of Australia’s well established political structure.” I am completely
unable to see how any of the offensive signage fails to fit in with that
spirit. Australian politics have, for the last few years and most
certainly during Gillard’s entire term of office, been such that one
would think twice before taking school children to witness Question
Time, and I really don’t know who van Onselen thinks he is kidding.


The ongoing discourse about how we should conduct our discourse is
unlikely to change anything. Van Onselen’s piece appears to make the
claim that those who offend middle-class sensitivities undermine the
more moderate message and concerns of mainstream protestors, and destroy
their credibility. This may well be the case, but only because people
such as van Onselen make it so, opportunistically denigrating the whole
on the basis of the actions of a very few.


It is not possible to eradicate voices some consider undesirable from
public expression. Otherwise we would not have to put up with the
Bolts. A sign held aloft at a demonstration cannot do one tiny fraction
of the harm done by Bolt, Jones and the like. If we are to conduct
serious conversations about how public discourse influences attitudes
and behaviours, surely we must start by interrogating the enunciations
of those with the furthest reach.


This article was first published on Jennifer’s blog No Place For Sheep and has been reproduced with permission.

To Tory Shepherd

To Tory Shepherd

By Kaye Lee on March 22, 2014 • ( 32 )

Sorry Tory, was the best I could do

To Tory Shepherd,


I was made aware of your article Grab-bag of rage as the March in March was much ado about nothing when reading Victoria Rollinson’s excellent article The missing ingredients.


I took part in the march and have read your criticism, some of which
may be valid.  If I may be so bold, I would like to offer some criticism
of my own.


You wish to denigrate protestors for not having professional signs?

“At the Canberra protest the UNHCR was the most
professional looking outfit there, carrying polished signs (not floppy
bits of cardboard).”

If you think that’s important then I am not surprised that you
thought it an “incoherent outpouring of rage against the machine.”  You
go on to say

“The point of March in March was to protest pretty much
everything, which meant that the valid points being made were drowned
out by noise. Those signs, those higgledy piggledy signs with bad
spelling and worse grammar, idiotic slurs and downright nasty smears,
tainted the whole project. “

It’s rather ironic that you spend the majority of your article
reporting that “noise” rather than the “valid points”.  I would suggest
that, without those few rather distasteful signs, you wouldn’t have
bothered even mentioning the other 100,000 of us.

“They have to be smart. And that is where the Marchers
failed and earned the contempt of so many.  If your form of protest
makes people either snigger in contempt or want to pat you on the head
or give you a good bath and a spelling lesson, then you’re doing it
wrong.”

Snigger at your peril.  Your condescension may well end up causing
you to be the one viewed with contempt.  You seem to feel that we needed
politicians there to lend credibility to the exercise.  Once again you
fail to see that it is the lack of credibility from our politicians and
media that was a driving force behind this people’s protest.  We are
tired of spin from image consultants and advertising firms.  We are
tired of biased inaccurate trivial reporting by the media.  What you
dismiss as a “grab-bag of mixed messages” was in fact an opportunity for
every individual to voice their concerns.


Saving the best of your journalistic expertise for last you end with

 “But the Marchers in the end threatened to disappear up their own proverbials in a puff of BO and bong smoke.”

Oh really?  I am 56 years old and I marched with my nephews who are 6
and 9.  We spoke in the lead up days about why we were marching.  The
boys’ take on the conversation was that we were marching to save the
trees and fish, and to make people be kind to each other.  I thought
that was a wonderful message and I was very proud of the “higgledy
piggledy” signs they wrote and drew themselves.  It was great to see my
elderly neighbours waving their anti-fracking signs to the beat of drums
played by pierced dreadlocked musicians.  It was uplifting to see
atheists applauding Father Rod’s speech about truth, decency, and
accountability.


This video is ”the horde of wild-eyed street-preacher types” that marched in Gosford.


You can’t pigeonhole the people who marched in March Tory, and you
can’t identify any one over-riding reason for their concern, but if you
think they are going to “disappear up their own proverbials” I would say
that your newspaper is far more likely to do that in the near future
than the concerned citizens of this country.


We marched because we love our country.  We marched for transparency
and accountability.  We marched for compassion.  We marched for the
future of our children.  Next time we will send you a press release so
you don’t have to bother writing this sort of ill-informed, poorly
researched, judgmental fluff in the future.

Letter to Jacqueline Maley

Letter to Jacqueline Maley

By Victoria Rollison on March 22, 2014 • ( 18 )

This letter is written by Cath Fisher (@astrakate) in response to Jacqueline Maley’s article – March in March: Two sides to the story we didn’t run – and is published here with Cath’s permission:

“It is strange that people who despise the MSM so much are so angry at being ignored by it”

No, Jacqueline Maley you are
wrong. We do not “despise” the MSM. We miss it. We miss being able to
switch on the telly or open a newspaper or tune into the radio and know
that the news broadcast will tell us WHAT  ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

We miss knowing that there
were some sources  better than others but that basically all of them
would report the news, some in a more formal fashion but nonetheless,
report what had occurred so that those of us who were not there would be
informed about what had happened in our absence.

I attended #MarchInMarch. I
SAW the huge (well behaved) crowds and I saw the placards. I saw some
which offended me somewhat and I saw hundreds that I appreciated, agreed
with, wished I’d thought of…

I listened to some inspiring speeches (and a few that rambled on a bit too long as well).

Just as our Senator Scott
Ludlam “Wants Our Country Back” I want our  MSM back. I want Rupert out
of the picture. I want our MSM to have the  guts to speak instead of
cowering in a corner then lashing out and  claiming that the left
“despises” them because we can no longer trust  the MSM or turn to the
MSM for proper, fair, fearless reporting.

We don’t “despise” you
Jacqueline Maley. We don’t trust you. We don’t  believe you and we know
you don’t put our interests first. You and your colleagues in the MSM
need to have the guts to REPORT.

Then you’ll earn our respect.

By Cath Fisher

@astrakate

Whitlam Dismissal and the CIA

THE CIA PLOT TO DISMISS THE WHITLAM GOVERNMENT

U.S. dominance and Australia’s secret coup

U.S. dominance and Australia’s secret coup

John Pilger 21 March 2014, 12:30pm  

InternationalPolitics

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Former Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr: CIA asset?

Washington’s part in the overthrow of the Ukrainian Government would surprise few, writes John Pilger, however its secret role in toppling the Australian Government in 1975 is still not widely known.



WASHINGTON'S ROLE in the fascist putsch against the elected government in Ukraine
will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore the historical
record. Since 1945, dozens of governments, many of them democracies,
have met a similar fate, usually with bloodshed.



Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries on earth, with fewer people than Wales, yet under the reformist Sandinistas
in the 1980s it was regarded in Washington as a "strategic threat". The
logic was simple; if the weakest slipped the leash, setting an example,
who else would try their luck?



The great game of dominance offers no immunity for even the most loyal U.S. "ally".



This is demonstrated by perhaps the least known of Washington's coups
— in Australia. The story of this forgotten coup is a salutary lesson
for those governments that believe a "Ukraine" or a "Chile" could never
happen to them.



Australia's deference to the United States makes Britain, by comparison, seem a renegade.



During the American invasion of Vietnam ‒ which Australia had pleaded
to join ‒ an official in Canberra voiced a rare complaint to Washington
that the British knew more about American objectives in that war than
its antipodean comrade-in-arms.



The response was swift:

"We have to keep the Brits informed to keep them happy. You are with us come what may."

This dictum was rudely set aside in 1972 with the election of the reformist Labor government of Gough Whitlam.



Although not regarded as of the left, Whitlam ‒ now in his 98th year ‒
was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride, propriety and
extraordinary political imagination. He believed that a foreign power
should not control his country's resources and dictate its economic and
foreign policies. He proposed to "buy back the farm" and speak as a voice independent of London and Washington.



On the day after his election, Whitlam ordered that his staff should not be "vetted or harassed" by the Australian security organisation, ASIO — then, as now, beholden to Anglo-American intelligence.



When his ministers publicly condemned the Nixon/Kissinger administration as "corrupt and barbaric", Frank Snepp, a CIA officer stationed in Saigon at the time, said later:

"We were told the Australians might as well be regarded as North Vietnamese collaborators."

Whitlam demanded to know if and why the CIA was running a spy base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs — ostensibly a joint Australian/U.S. "facility".





Pine Gap is a giant vacuum cleaner which, as the whistleblower Edward Snowden recently revealed, allows the U.S. to spy on everyone.



In the 1970s, most Australians had no idea that this secretive
foreign enclave placed their country on the front line of a potential
nuclear war with the Soviet Union.



Whitlam clearly knew the personal risk he was taking, as the minutes of a meeting with the U.S. ambassador demonstrate. "Try to screw us or bounce us," he warned, "[and Pine Gap] will become a matter of contention".



Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later told me:

"This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White
House. Consequences were inevitable... a kind of Chile was set in
motion."

The CIA had just helped General Augusto Pinochet to crush the democratic government of another reformer, Salvador Allende, in Chile.



In 1974, the White House sent Marshall Green to Canberra as ambassador.



Green was an imperious, very senior and sinister figure in the State Department who worked in the shadows of America's "deep state". Known as the "coupmaster", he had played a central role in the 1965 coup against President Sukarno in Indonesia, which cost up to a million lives.



One of Green’s first speeches in Australia was to the Australian Institute of Company Directors, which was described by an alarmed member of the audience as

"… an incitement to the country's business leaders to rise against the government.”

Pine Gap's top-secret messages were de-coded in California by a CIA contractor, TRW.



One of the de-coders was a young Christopher Boyce, an idealist who, troubled by the "deception and betrayal of an ally",
became a whistleblower. Boyce revealed that the CIA had infiltrated the
Australian political and trade union elite and referred to the
Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, as "our man Kerr".





In his black top hat and medal-laden morning suit, Kerr was the
embodiment of imperium. He was the Queen of England's Australian viceroy
in a country that still recognised her as head of state. His duties
were ceremonial; yet Whitlam ‒ who appointed him ‒ was unaware of or
chose to ignore Kerr's long-standing ties to Anglo-American
intelligence.



The Governor-General was an enthusiastic member of the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, described by Jonathan Kwitny of the Wall Street Journal in his book, The Crimes of Patriots, as:

‘… an elite, invitation-only group ... exposed in Congress as being founded, funded and generally run by the CIA ….



‘[The CIA] paid for Kerr's travel, built his prestige [while]... Kerr continued to go to the CIA for money.’

In 1975, Whitlam discovered that Britain's MI6 had long been operating against his Government.



He said later:

“The Brits were actually de-coding secret messages coming into my foreign affairs office."

One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me:

“We knew MI6 was bugging Cabinet meetings for the Americans."

In interviews in the 1980s with the American investigative journalist Joseph Trento, executive officers of the CIA disclosed that the "Whitlam problem" had been discussed "with urgency" by the CIA's director, William Colby, and the head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield, and that "arrangements" were made.





A deputy director of the CIA told Trento:

"Kerr did what he was told to do."

In 1975, Whitlam learned of a secret list of CIA personnel in
Australia held by the Permanent Head of the Australian Defence
Department, Sir Arthur Tange — a deeply conservative mandarin with unprecedented territorial power in Canberra.



Whitlam demanded to see the list. On it was the name, Richard Stallings who, under cover, had set up Pine Gap as a provocative CIA installation. Whitlam now had the proof he was looking for.



On 10 November, 1975, Whitlam was shown a top secret telex message sent by ASIO in Washington. This was later sourced to Theodore Shackley,
head of the CIA's East Asia Division and one of the most notorious
figures spawned by the Agency. Shackley had been head of the CIA's
Miami-based operation to assassinate Fidel Castro and Station Chief in Laos and Vietnam. He had recently worked on the "Allende problem".



Shackley's message was read to Whitlam. Incredibly, it said that the
prime minister of Australia was a security risk in his own country.



The day before, Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate,
Australia's NSA, whose ties to Washington were ‒ and reman ‒ binding.
He was briefed on the "security crisis". He had then asked for a secure
line and spent 20 minutes in hushed conversation.



On 11 November ‒ the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the
secret CIA presence in Australia ‒ he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking
archaic vice-regal "reserve powers", Kerr sacked the democratically
elected prime minister.



The problem was solved.



Read more by John Pilger and find out about his new documentary Utopia on his website johnpilger.com. Follow John Pilger on Twitter @johnpilger.