One of the more disturbing aspects of the constant development of new technology that underlies our increasingly global civilisation is the tendency it creates in some people to see all problems in technical terms and all solutions in new technology. Hence the ballistic missile defence system that Australia has just signed up to.
By the usual standards of military systems, BMD is absurdly risky and expensive. The general consensus among neutral commentators is that militarily, it just won’t work. Furthermore, it opens up a whole new set of problems in global military relations.
For instance, there can be no doubt that it has serious implications for rising powers like China and India whose most likely response will to move into expansionary missile and weapons production programs to overwhelm any such system. But perhaps most worrying ultimately is the need for such a system to destroy missiles soon after take-off, in the booster phase, to prevent fissile material spreading beyond the country of origin. This capacity would have the most profound implications for international relations because if a system could hit a fast accelerating missile, it could hit anything. Most simply, defence becomes offence.
BMD is essentially a scam dreamed up by the American military-industrial complex to keep the lucrative government contracts coming in. The truly huge amounts of money will stimulate the development of the very technologies that the US sees as strategically crucial to its commercial as well as military dominance. Its intent is not really to defend against so-called rogue states, who could deliver a nuclear weapon by yacht or Cessna if they really wanted to attack the US, but to support the most important sector of the US economy. It is in effect a de facto industrial policy aimed at the high tech sector.
It also maintains the fiction that the incredibly complex and increasingly integrated modern world can be run by rules worked 400 years ago that said nation states are independent and sovereign entities. BMD is just a big fort, but it will (sooner or later) cover the whole world, and a fort that covers the whole world is a prison.
Some problems have no technical solution. Those problems can only be dealt with by sustained, open discussion. Sooner, rather than later, we must create a world order built on such activity, and not military threat.

Although we will see how much leadership changes Mark Latham’s views, on the surface of it we now have two political leaders who assume that a new era of market-based social realtions is upon us. As such they both focus on the most salient politcal (or at least electoral) aspect of this condition, the so-called aspirational class.
One thing that is clear about this class is that they like their material goodies – block-filling mcmansions, gas-guzzling 4WDs and jet skis, noisy lawn mowers and leaf blowers, and home entertainment systems that’ll blast you out of the room at full volume.
The thing is, except for the last example, these things are all environmental disasters. The mcmansions use vast resources to build and have to be air-conditioned, the 4WDs also use massive amounts of materials, are wasteful of fuel and pollute, and much the same goes with all the other stuff. And the further thing is, sooner or later the problems of declining oil reserves, pollution and especially global warming mean that the economics of these things will alter radically.
In all likelihood we are in the last days of the carefree abuse of the environment that underlies this hyper-materialistic lifestyle. It is already a harsh fact that wars are being fought to maintain American and western control over the declining oil reserves. This brutal reality – that most of the globe’s significant oil reserves are in the middle east – is behind the new US policy in that region. The US is also increasingly active in influencing events in other oil rich regions, notably around the Caspian Sea, South America and west Africa.
There are a whole raft of environmental problems approaching a critical condition, but the big one is clearly global warming. If even the mid-range projections are correct, then this century will see massive social, economic and political upheaval due to climate change. And inevitably, given current international power relations, there will be military conflict.
Kyoto, that miserably meagre attempt to ameliorate global warming, is in limbo, with Russia just opting out and the US under Bush going in the opposite direction.
If we were an intelligent species, we’d be doing something about this set of problems, perhaps the worst we’ve ever faced as a civisation. First, we’d adopt the precautionary principle and act to end the worst abuses. Second, we’d shift our whole economic base from materials to information.
Many smart men, including a bevy of business gurus, have been saying that’s where we are heading anyway. They note the information revolution and how it has radically altered industrial production, trade and everything else. More and more, they say, the real money is in information and ideas, and not things.
So the most obvious response to the environmental crisis is to hasten the shift to an information economy that minimises use of material resources.
So the aspirational class need to trade in their polluting and gas-guzzling gadgets and expand their home entertainment systems.
In fact, the most interesting and important aspect of this whole information revolution is the way it places the emphasis back on human beings, creativity and education. Promoting these things is a good idea in itself.
So, if we had really smart leaders they’d be addressng these issues before it was too late, but that’s not how politics works, is it. Any party that said we’re going to act now to prevent a problem not already obvious would get hammered at the polls. Or is the electorate smarter than that?

Southern Pacific Petroleum has been put into receivership, taking with it the dreams of Sir Ian McFarlane. No, not the RBA Ian McFarlane or the Minister , but the founder of Southern Pacific who has spent the best part of 35 years trying to bring his dream of creating oil from Queensland shale to production. I only hope that if I have the same span of time with On Line Opinion and National Forum it proves to be more fruitful for me. You have to admire his tenacity – all those years without any positive cashflow or dividends.
This failure adds to the tally of failures of innovative Australian mining processes. Southern Pacific’s shale oil deposits are close to Gladstone, the scene for the demise of Ian Howard-Smith’s Queensland Magnesium Corporation’s plan to supply huge amounts of the potential world demand for magnesium. Then there are the disasters of the various attempts to produce nickel from lateritic deposits; the BHP HBI project; the Windimurra Vanadium plant etc. etc. etc.
I am not suggesting that we are the only country where ambitious projects sometimes fail, just that we are having a bad run of them and in mining, an area of endeavour where we have world class expertise. In terms of the size of our economy these failures, some running into the billions over years, are up there with the tech wreck in the USA. Except that most of those didn’t involve any tax payer money, whereas most of ours did.
Not that the demise of Southern Pacific means there is no future for the shale oil deposits themselves. I have noticed some speculation about just how much fossil fuel there is around, and how long it will last. Some think we may have already passed peak flow of oil. This article puts the case that we are rapidly running out of economic stores of liquid fossil fuels, and if it is correct that means that the price of reserves of these fuels, including oil shale, will soar. If only McFarlane could have hung on for 40 years, rather than only 35, he might have seen some Malthusian alchemy on his stores of greasy rock. Maybe that benefit will pass to the Canadian company that issued the bankruptcy proceedings and who just happened to be equity partner and creditor at the same time.

Mark Latham’s first job is to disavow all those interesting things he said before the gravitas of leadership transformed him. Like Howard being an arselicker and Bush being flaky. Funny thing, of course, is that his forthrightness – such a change from the usual banal polly-speak – seems to strike a cord with many Australians because they think that at least he’s saying what he thinks. And it certainly got him headlines (memo to ambitious young political types – any publicity is good publicity, up to a point).
So now he has to play the game and waffle on about context and the robust interchange of ideas in a democracy to journalists who don’t have any better questions to ask, until ML mark 2 (or is it mark 3?) is established in the public consciousness.
Leaders can’t be totally honest, of course, or the world would be in constant turmoil (although, actually, if everyone did it, things might turn out a lot better than they are). But we now have a crop of world leaders who lie and dissemble as standard practice. Howard’s dishonesty is rightly an election issue, Blair has done the seemingly impossible and wrecked his reputation through lies, and Bush never says anything that isn’t a simplistic motherhood statement.
I think the basic problem lies with the mass media, especialy electronic. First there is the problem of sound bites which makes it almost impossible to put any kind of coherent argument for consumption by the TV news. Second is the problem of lazy journos who just go for the sensational over the substantive – it’s the political journalism version of making them cry on current affairs. They just won’t do their homework and ask questions about underlying issues.
So Latham has to play the game, but I hope he at least lets the fire smoulder in his belly, says the odd unpredictable thing, and gives the smug patriarch who currently runs things in Oz a good reason to retire.

There is only one winning margin thinner than that of 47 to 45 and that is 46 all with the winner to be decided on the toss of a coin. Mark Latham’s win will only be a victory for Labor if they now genuinely unite behind his leadership. Beazley has said that he will, but then that is what he said after his last leadership challenge.
I was impressed with Latham’s victory speech . It was well paced, had a good tone and fingered all the right messages – health, education and childcare – while only respectfully and briefly mentioning national security. He promised to be positive, a promise which will be hard for a politician to keep. Latham didn’t try to hedge around his past faults – he admitted them and promised to do better. It wasn’t a polished delivery, another mark in its favour. Andrew Peacock had a polished delivery, but it tended to alienate voters.
Latham based much of his speech around an image – the “ladder of opportunity” – from which the Howard Government “has taken out too many of the rungs”. He connected and personalized. Not only were his wife and family with him, but he talked about his past – the housing commission estate and the frustrations of the local bus service in Green Valley. He distanced himself from the culture of entitlement, so readily associated with Labor and disdained by many blue collar Australians – “I believe in hard work, reward for effort…”
He situated the personal experiences in an historical context – December 1972 is the anniversary of the election of the Whitlam Labor Government. (It is also, as Phillip Adams pointed out on LNL this evening, the day that Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of France). When asked about the narrowness of the vote he referred to Curtin’s victory over Forde by 11 to 10, but undercut the potential charge of hubris by pointing out that the caucus was much smaller then and that he wasn’t Curtin.
On top of everything he had a couple of slogans – the “War on Terror” has to be matched by the “War on Inequality”, and an “Australian government as good as the Australian people”. All this was wrapped up in the message that the ALP was moving into the future with a new generation.
Latham has to overcome the Brogden problem. Our research found that while voters agreed with what Brogden was saying in the NSW election campaign they didn’t know enough about him, and partly as a result didn’t trust him enough, to give him their vote. Latham seemed to be aware of this problem – “Some will be asking ‘Who is Mark Latham…’”. He’s filled in the gaps with skill, and provided some easily digestible unifying themes that voters should be easily able to remember.
If Latham can keep this up and his party lets him do the job he will offer a real alternative to Howard at the next election. The things people don’t like about Labor are its perceived untrustworthiness. Roy Morgan pollingshowed that people think Latham is a straight shooter, and he did nothing today to contradict that. But he did more than that. He reached out to voters’ individual experiences and made himself one of them in a context where he could give them a sense of historical purpose and belonging – the tribal identity that all good politicians need to construct for their voters. That is something that no politician since Bob Hawke has been able to do consistently.
On Late Night Live tonight Adams and guests were saying how unlike Whitlam Latham is. I think they saw this as a negative, but I see it as a positive. Kim Beazley’s father famously observed that once the Labor Party was full of the cream of the working class, but that now it has become full of the dregs of the middle class. Latham may be generational change, but if he is, it is retro – he is the cream of the working class, and perhaps he can reinvigorate the Labor Party. He’s been a good supporter of OLO. I wish him all the best.

There is a fair bit of confidence within the ALP that Labor can win the next Federal election. The view is that the electorate is fed up with Howard and would try any sort of genuine alternative.
So how does a Latham win affect things? There are two big questions: How will Latham handle the constant, all round pressure of being leader? And will the caucus really unite behind him?
Latham has some substantial assets on his side, personal and organisational. Although close, the leadership contest was a classic choice between old and new, and Kim Beazley was a strong candidate. Latham’s win was significant beyond the personal contest. Latham has already won his spurs in a way Crean did not at the outset. Furthermore, the vote indicates that caucus put long term success over their fears about the next election. Beazley was seen as the safe bet going into an election, who could lose with minimum cost. Electing Latham suggests that caucus thinks they can definitely win and they want action when they do. This is a very good sign.
I thought Rudd did himself no favours in the contest. His own self regard came through very clearly, and now Latham has a problem with what to do with him.
As for Beazley, no one doubts his integrity, and his losing speech was spot on. Hopefuly he’ll now play the part of the experienced old war horse in assisting the new leadership from the back benches.
But now the pressure is on Mark Latham. His faults are well known, but he has two really important qualities: he is genuinely bright (a sadly rare attribute in our current crop of pollies) and he has a red hot go. This dynamism, risky as it is, may break through the increasing cynicism of the electorate.
It is well known that Latham’s hero is Gough Whitlam, who was also accused of being unstable and risky before he took over from the safe Arthur Calwell. Maybe Latham can combine Whitlam’s real leadership qualities and the lessons (hopefully) learned from his downfall to give us something to get excited about.

Which is why Mark Latham should hope he doesn’t win tomorrow’s ALP caucus ballot for Federal leader. Public opinion polls show that Kim Beazley is the most popular candidate with the public. Gary Morgan’s latest offering has 38% favouring Kim Beazley, 21% Kevin Rudd and 17.5% Mark Latham. Wayne Swan trails the field on 5%. If Swan is eliminated from contention Beazley moves up to 39%, Rudd to 22% and Latham 20%.
Ominously for Labor, 19% are unable to name a preferred candidate. This indicates that there is a large degree of public apathy on the issue. OLO won’t be polling on this one for reasons to do with teething problems with our new web host. Last time we polled on the Labor leadership we found that the leader of the Labor Party was a secondary issue. The problem was the product, not the salesman. A 19% “don’t know” or more likely “couldn’t give a toss” factor suggests that this is still the case and that we shouldn’t put too much store in Morgan’s figures. While I am not questioning their accuracy they are just not necessarily significant – a bit like measuring someone’s blood pressure when the problem is with their head rather than their heart.
Morgan’s qualitative research is much more interesting. What voters appear to be saying is that Beazley is a known quantity and that, forced to make a choice, they prefer the known to the unknown. But one of Beazley’s known qualities is that he has lost twice to John Howard and was unable at the last election to project a Labor Party that was both attractive and credible. Our research showed quite clearly that people liked Beazley, they just didn’t trust him to deliver.
Comments about Rudd center on his youth (he’s 7 months older than me, I like the sound of that!), diplomacy and new ideas. Latham is seen as being in touch, aggressive and a straight shooter. Given that Labor’s major problem is that it is seen as shifty, you would have to think that Latham actually comes with the best review out of this.
But none of this matters one iota because one of the qualities that the successful candidate needs to have is the ability to bring unity to the party. Unfortunately for Latham, that candidate is Beazley, but not for reasons that have anything to do with Beazley’s skills. Rather they have to do with the fact that if Latham were to win there is a percentage of the party who would not accept that win and who would set out to destabilize him. For evidence of this you only have to look at the reactions to Latham’s declaration that Labor is for tax cuts not tax rises. In internal party politics 50% plus one of the vote is not enough for a real win – you have to either be able to totally dominate your enemies, or bring them along with you. It only takes one to rock the boat, but one is also enough to capsize it. If Latham were to win, the party would be heading for another ducking.
Latham’s best result (and I am personally a fan) would be if he were to just lose to Beazley. That would make him the front-runner after the next election if Labor loses. If Labor wins it would put him in a position to be the consensus choice for successor. While Rudd is young, Latham is even younger. There is so much time in front of each of them that they could both end up being Labor Prime Ministers at some stage. In the meantime Labor has a lot of issues that it needs to sort out for itself, and I am beginning to suspect that will cause and require another election loss. Then perhaps all elements in the party will be prepared to start pulling in the one direction.