THE departure of Richard Butler as Governor of Tasmania has been exactly how I thought it would be – very quick, and at the instigation or insistence of Tasmania’s new Premier, Paul Lennon.
Readers may recall that when Paul Lennon became Premier in February I commented on this site that he was a no nonsense politician, who gave no quarter and asked for none in return.
I sensed then his relationship with His Excellency Richard Butler, in his first year as Governor, would be very different from that Jim Bacon obviously had.
It did not take long to prove me right. Within weeks, the new Premier issued one of those terse statements I enjoy – very brief, but as clear as a crystal glass.
After the Governor make a speech or two on foreign policy, the Premier made it very clear he had informed the Governor, and the Governor had agreed, he would not be making any more statements or speeches on domestic politics or foreign policy!
To me that was the “beginning of the end” for His Excellency. Richard Butler has always had an inflated view of his own importance, and the public “put down” by the Premier must have been galling.
In recent weeks, the Hobart Mercury newspaper, and other sections of the media, and the Tasmanian community, have given the Governor and his wife a tough time, perhaps deserved, but as tough as I have seen, and even tougher than the “ride” the national media gave Dr Peter Hollingworth in the second year of his tenure as Governor General.
Clearly the Governor, and his wife, were uncomfortable with the totally restricted role State Governors MUST play.
Once all his senior staff resigned last week, and the Governor and his Lady had some spectacular run-ins with the media, his fate was sealed.
Returning to Hobart on Sunday afternoon, to a media reception the like of which Hobart has probably never seen, the Governor soon found himself preparing for a “meeting” with the Premier last night. By the end of the “meeting” the Governor had resigned, with immediate effect!
Paul Lennon, not to my surprise, had wasted no time in getting rid of someone who had become a very considerable “political problem”.
The Butler “experiment” was probably always doomed to fail.
Not only were the Butler’s entirely unsuited to the constraints of the Vice Regal Office, they were never going to have a good relationship with a new Premier with a well deserved reputation for being a non nonsense politician.
One suspects the “agenda” for the meeting was a one liner – “timing of resignation and transitional arrangements!”
The recent history of State Governors behaving badly, or inadequately, is an interesting one. Just about every State had had its problems with its Vice Regal representatives, with the singular and notable exception of Queensland!
For the last 20 years, both Labor and National Premiers of Queensland have pretty well got it right in their selection of Vice Regal representatives.
And on three occasions over the last 20 years, the Governor of Queensland has been put in a position where the Vice Regal role in ensuring stable Government has been on stand-by, if not actually called upon.
On each occasion, the incumbent, has behaved impeccably – and the good and stable government of Queensland has been the beneficiary.
The first occasion was in late 1987 when Sir Walter Benjamin Campbell (appointed 1985) “declined” to sack a swag of Ministers Sir Johannes Bjelke- Petersen (elected 1968) wanted to remove in a last, desperate effort to hang on to power in the face of a revolt by his own Party.
His carefully crafted requirement that Sir Joh demonstrate that he had Party, and possibly Parliamentary, support hastened the end of the 20 year Bjelke-Petersen era, and ensured a smooth transition to the Ahern Government, though the Governor required the newly-sworn Premier to confirm he had majority Parliamentary support.
History will regard very highly the skilful way Sir Walter handled what must have been a very tense and difficult situation. The State ought to always be grateful to him for it.
The second test came after the 1995 elections when the Goss Government lost its effective Parliamentary majority when the Court of Disputed Returns declared the seat of Mundingburra vacant. The Governor, Leneen Forde, (appointed 1992) managed the situation with great dignity, and contributed to a smooth, mid term transition from the Goss Labor Government to the Borbidge National-Liberal in 1996.
The third occasion was potentially the most challenging of all, and came after the 1998 State Election when neither the Borbidge Government nor the Beattie Opposition won a Parliamentary majority.
The Governor appointed by the Borbidge Government, Major General Peter Arnison, again handled the situation with total propriety, resulting in an orderly transition to the Beattie Government after it gained the support of the Independent holding the balance of power.
It is worthy of note that all three Governors had their terms extended by a Premier of a difficult political persuasion to the one who appointed them! That is a true vote of confidence if ever there was one.
The post-war history of Queensland Governors is one marked by distinguished service, with but one hiccup. In 1975, the then Governor, Sir Colin Thomas Hannah, (appointed 1972), commented on the federal political situation, resulting in the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, withdrawing his commission to act as Administrator in the absence of the Governor General. (interestingly, it was not re-instated by Malcolm Fraser).
Unquestionably the most popular Governor in the State’s history was Sir Henry Abel Smith (appointed 1958) who travelled very extensively throughout Queensland in an ear in which travel was not as easy as it is today. The fact that Lady May Abel Smith was a relation of The Queen did not do his standing any harm!
A competent Governor, with both feet firmly planed on the ground, can do good things for the community. The incumbent, Quentin Bryce, is following in the very sound tradition of her recent predecessors.
Perhaps Premier Lennon might send whoever he appoints as the next Governor of Tasmania to Queensland for some “tuition” on what to do and what not to do, from Sir Walter Campbell, Leneen Forde and Peter Arnison?
I was about to add that Richard Butler might not be packing his bags had be been given that tuition as well. But I seriously doubt it would have made any difference!
August 10, 2004 | Jeff Wall
Premier Lennon confirms his “no nonsense” reputation, and Governor Butler packs his bags.
August 08, 2004 | Unknown
When Loving Was Wrong: the Crime of Mary Kay Letourneau
Mary Kay Letourneau’s release from a Washington jail last week was partly greeted with a continuation of the romantic notions that were initially expressed when she was first imprisoned for second degree child rape.
Now forty-two years of age, Letourneau became movie of the week material in 1997 when her sexual relationship with a 12-year-old former student, Vili Fualaau, was exposed.
Unusually for a case relating to an adult involved with a minor there has been a preoccupation with Letourneau’s “love” for Fualaau and whether it will endure.
Who magazine informed us recently that “friends say she’s still in love with (him)”, while Gregg Olsen, author of If Loving You is Wrong*, told The Sydney Morning Herald many people see this as a love story and want to see them together”.
Olsen maintains Letourneau has a vested interest in claiming her actions were motivated by the heart, but what makes people like “Tina” express a wish on Letourneau’s website for the pair to marry sometime in the future?
Since they had an active sex life which was carried out in locations such as the school gym, the union could be understood as having been driven mostly by lust and a self-centred desire to engage in dangerous and forbidden behaviour regardless of the consequences.
Perhaps Letourneau justified it as her chance to rebel against her ultra-right wing parents, an unfaithful husband and what it means to be a wife and “mom”.
Apparently, she will be offering an ‘explanation’ soon; however, if past comments are still a guide she sees her actions as adulterous rather than abusive.
In a much reprinted photograph of Letourneau and Fualaau, in which she looks at him sideways and smiles, she comes off like a besotted teenager and not a grown-up, while he looks too young to be getting that gaze from a woman.
Contrary to what a contributor on www.marykayletourneau.com believes, even if they were in love Letourneau had a choice and could have ended the association when it became erotically charged and before it involved sex.
The “love” rationalisation and the idea Fualaau was the “predator” as one web columnist alleges allows notions about what attractive, white, middle-class mothers are capable of and general attitudes about men, women, class and race to go unchallenged.
Sean Baker, whose Ph.D. studies at the University of Washington focussed on the case, contends that “by locating Letourneau into an “appropriate” and constructed gender role, the media assisted in the manufacturing and upholding of our culture by rectifying counter intuitive events”.
It can be imagined what angles would have been taken if Letourneau had been the poor Samoan-American and Fualaau a white boy from the nice side of town or if their genders had been reversed (although a Melbourne man recently received compensation for stress after losing his teaching position because he had taken up with a female student).
The lack of curiosity about Fualaau’s plight might be explained by prejudices about the survival instincts and supposed immorality of the working-class or by the denial of their feelings, but as Olsen argues “his life has been profoundly impacted by what she did”.
So has his mother’s; she has custody of the children that resulted from the liaison.
It is important to acknowledge that many women who are incarcerated are drug-addicted (90% according to Susan Nadler in the stupidly titled Good Girls Gone Bad) and have been victims of sexual and/or physical abuse, but we also have to concede some females behave badly without extenuating reasons, just like some men do.
Women gain little by being viewed as inherently good and always acting for noble reasons like love.
We will have to wait and see what Letourneau has to add to her previous self-serving comments about the ‘affair’.
*The book presumably takes its name from the song of the same name, which contains lyrics that Letourneau might empathise with:
If bearing the way I feel for you
Is committing a crime
Am I breaking the law
Devoting myself to you?
You are the hope my dreams are built on
The reason for my happiness
You’re my everything and so much more
You’re the air I breath
My fantasy
Speaking of abuse, after I posted this piece I witnessed a man screaming really awful stuff at a child I presume was his son in the mall at Fortitude Valley. Such an incident reminds that verbal abuse is also incredibly destructive and can become deeply internalised. How is that little boy supposed to grow up feeling good about himself when he is told he is a “f****** c***” by a man who is supposed to be his dominant role model?
Suffice to say I wish I had done something, although I have no idea what I could have.
Darlene recommends GeekGirl for reading enjoyment.
August 03, 2004 | Jeff Wall
City Councillors indulging themselves…the expense of their ratepayers
THE ink was barely dry on the declarations of local authority results in Queensland just over three months ago when virtually every major City Council began the process of increasing the salaries and allowances of its Councillors in the least transparent way possible.
The one exception was the City of Brisbane, where the salaries of Councillors are tied to those of State MP’s, whose salaries are tied to those of Federal MP’s!
The appalling indulgence of some City Councils when it comes to the salaries and allowances of Councillors must surely encourage the Minister for Local Government to seriously consider removing the power Councillors have to fix their own salaries and allowances.
The worst offenders of all also happen to be the worst behaving Councillors of all – those who call themselves the Gold Coast City Council.
Last week they brazenly granted themselves across the board increases – many times the rate of inflation – using the feeble, miserable excuse that they were entitled to bring their salaries closer to those of State Members.
The even more miserable feature of the increase was that the recently-elected Mayor, Ron Clarke, supported the increase despite his brave but totally dishonest promise BEFORE he was elected that he would cut the cost of being Mayor………. ….a promise he has shamefully broken almost weekly since his election.
Three Councillors, the unofficial Civic Opposition, voted against the increase but just one said he would give the increase to charity. Councillor Dawn Crichlow, the vastly overrated “champion of the underdog” (and the stray dog) voted against the rise but has not said he won’t accept it!
Right around Queensland City, Town and Shire Councils have been indulging themselves at the expense of their ratepayers in the sure and certain knowledge their greed will be forgotten by the time they next face the ratepayers and citizens in 2008 – and that itself is a profound argument against four year terms for anyone!
This process also confirming a wholly undesirable trend for Councillors to make their jobs virtually fulltime. With the exception of Brisbane, and possibly the Gold Coast, that has never been the intention of the Local Government Act, or, I am sure, their long suffering ratepayers.
Last week at least one medium size city voted to pay its Councillors over $50,000 a year (plus allowances). In that community – suffering the impact of drought and the agricultural decline – such a figure would put them in the “upper income” group.
When I began my career as a journalist one of my tasks was to write on local government. It game me the privilege of getting to know some of the truly great civic leaders of this State, such as H G “Paddy” Behan, Chairman of the Isisford Shire Council for over 40 years and President of the Local Government Association for almost as long, and Jim Walker, Chairman of the Longreach Shire for well over two decades.
At the same time, Brisbane’s best ever Lord Mayor, Clem Jones, was in the middle of his record 13 year leadership of the capital city. Clem Jones refused to take the Lord Mayoral salary for the whole of his term, accepting only the allowances that went with it.
How times have changed? The great majority of Mayors today are pale imitations of the great Mayors of the past – full of their own importance, and filling their pockets at the same time!
There are a couple of exceptions, and I will mention two who are as far apart politically as possible – Tony Mooney in Townsville and Yvonne Chapman in Pine Rivers.
At the same time as Councillors have been helping themselves to the ratepayers funds, they have been upping the rates and charges as well to add insult to injury.
The concept of “serving the community” used to be the reason why many good men and women sought election to their local council. Today it has become “serving ourselves” and is it little wonder that the standing of local government is generally on the decline?
I guess it cost Paddy Behan a small fortune each year to serve as President of the Local Government Association while remaining Chairman of the Isisford Shire in the far west of Queensland. Fortunately he was a successful wool grower and could probably afford it.
But that is not the point. The concept of “community service” in Local Government was a noble one. It is today but a part of our history.
The new Minister for Local Government is a down to earth politician. She would win many friends if she put a halt to the greed and indulgence of Councillors right around Queensland, and set up an independent Tribunal to determine the salaries and allowances of Council Members.
Long suffering, and powerless ratepayers, would forever be in her debt!
August 02, 2004 | Graham
More on Moore
I’m still getting around to putting my thoughts on paper about Fahrenheit 9/11, although they’re well and truly mustered. In the meantime I’ve decided to collect any electronic reviews of Fahrenheit 9/11 that I am sent and publish them here, with the author’s permission of course. I’m not a lazy columnist, but it is luxurious to have someone else more or less providing your copy.
This review is from Sukrit Sabhlok.
Dear Mr Michael Moore…
In the 20th century many would say it was Orson Welles, with Citizen Kane, his famous critique of American capitalism and in particular media magnate William Randolph Hearst, who ignited a flame of controversy in the Western world. Nowadays it’s you, Michael Moore, employing a significantly different tactic – that of the documentary – who’s revelling in your self-appointed role as critical film maker catering to the masses.
For sure, you try your best to be just an average, run-of-the-mill guy. In your films it’s your sarcastic laid back attitude, frequent donning of baseball caps and layman simplicity that shout to the viewer: ‘Hey, I’m just an average Joe.’ And if anyone still doesn’t believe you’re a working class American (deep down inside that is) they can look to the fact that you never managed to pass university and obtain a bachelors degree, and that you dropped out to pursue professional activism, which you then mixed with journalism.
Most of us remember your Academy Award acceptance speech, but not everyone can see that there’s a certain driving force behind your ramblings. Yet I know you’re a guy who knows exactly what he’s setting out do to with his anti-Bush “diatribe”, and to a perhaps greater extent, exactly how to do it. As expected, your latest work – Fahrenheit 9/11 – is gritty when it should be smooth sailing, insensitive when the utmost sensitivity should be displayed and plain stupid when what’s required is tact and judgement.
I’d like to share a couple of general suggestions as a member of the viewing public to a political documentary maker. First, don’t assume brainwashing techniques always work – the public knows when they aren’t hearing the other side of the argument. It’s important to retain some semblance of fair and balanced reporting if you wish to keep your credibility. Second, snide sarcasm during inappropriate moments is not an appealing thing. Third, try not to use other people’s film footage in a distorted fashion.
In one of the scenes where you showed buildings blowing up, why did you do it just to give the effect of indiscriminate bombing of civilians by the US? Why didn’t you tell the public that these were really Ministry of Defence buildings in an area where no member of the public was allowed (under punishment of death)? In spite of numerous attempts to discredit you (one of your persistent critics, Dave Kopel from the Independent Institute, has compiled a list of more than 50 “deceits” in Fahrenheit 9/11) let’s pretend for a moment there isn’t a single distortion in your film, and that there’s also not a single factual inaccuracy.
Now we’re left with the question of how you could’ve portrayed your case against the Bush Administration in a better way, meaning a way in which the neo-conservative hawks wouldn’t be able to slam down so easily as propaganda. For starters you shouldn’t have twisted the footage of Australian documentary maker George Gittoes to suit your agenda. About seventeen selections in Fahrenheit are taken from an Australian war documentary, Soundtrack to War and were used against the objection of Gittoes.
“I was concerned of course for my soldiers because their interviews were taken out of context,” Mr Gittoes told the Nine Network. I thought your heart was genuinely in the right place with Bowling for Columbine Even after Fahrenheit 9/11 (the decision to watch it was a test of my own personal objectivity) I still agreed with you to an extent – the WMD argument was indeed flimsy. But why didn’t you explore the humanitarian benefits accruing to Iraqis?
Moreover, why did you express support for the wrong side on your website?
michaelmoore.com: “The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not ‘insurgents’ or ‘terrorists’ or ‘The Enemy.’ They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow – and they will win.” It puzzles me that you would see murderers in such a warm glow. When early Americans revolted against efforts by the British monarchy to stifle their liberties, this was genuine revolution spurred on by a desire for peace and freedom. Militant guerillas that kill innocent children don’t fall into such a noble category, a category that includes such men as Thomas Jefferson.
It’s unfortunate that you missed out on using significant historical parallels wherever possible. In your film, you could’ve drawn a parallel between events in intelligence gathering during the Cold War and now. A pertinent mention of the George Kennan telegram, where a low-ranking official in an American embassy in Moscow sent a telegram warning of Soviet aggression that was quickly heralded as proof of Soviet intent to destroy capitalism by the president Harry Truman, would’ve been perfect. Such an example would serve to cast doubt upon the process via which intelligence is formulated into foreign policy.
Perhaps you thought serious analysis would bore your audience. If so, this was your missed opportunity. Whatever the outcome of the American election, you should realise that no-one can make inferences or allegations without solid evidence (implying newspaper clippings aren’t always enough to prove the validity of your case), and expect real change. I admire that you’re tackling the big issues in a way that’s interesting to the average voter, and I praise you for this. I hope your next film will be worth the effort, both for the viewer and for you.