Might seem an absurd proposition, but that would be the effect of Sarah Stephen’s call to “make our opposition [to Howard] felt through better organised and more determined protest movements.”
Stephen’s diatribe, under the healine “Howard has no mandate” is an exercise in the sort of logically attenuated reasoning that contributed to Labor’s defeat. Mandate theory is a fairly difficult concept, and lends itself to odd-ball interpretations, but Stephen’s is more oddball than most. She argues that because Howard didn’t “campaign”, whatever that means, on the basis of privatising Telstra, anti-union (sic) laws, or media ownership, then he isn’t allowed to implement any legislation in these areas.
Who cares that not only is she factually incorrect – he did mention a number of these things during the election campaign – but that bills to both privatise Telstra and change the IR laws were queued up as double dissolution triggers, so electors were well aware what he stood for? Not Stephen, apparently, and there will be other denizens of the left who will be similarly impaired.
The result? They will man the barricades and most likely help Howard, or Costello, to another victory. The reason? Voters by and large know what they are getting when they vote for someone, and after 8 years of Howard, they know him better than most federal leaders in their lifetime. They know that when you vote for a politician you don’t vote for them on the basis of cherry picking only those of their ideas that you agree with. You vote for them on the basis of a package – some good, some not so good, and some downright bad. But you take that package because it is better than the other package. (Or more probably less worse.)
Voters don’t take kindly to some “revolutionary” smarty pants coming along and telling them they were too stupid to exercise their vote wisely. They also don’t appreciate it when they are told that their neighbours didn’t exercise their vote wisely so that even if they didn’t agree with how they exercised that vote, they will get in behind it if it is challenged.
If GLW and others take to the streets they are setting up the same sort of dynamics in Australia as were set up in Queensland in the Bjelke-Petersen years. Some of us learnt from those years. Probably just as well that some others didn’t.
October 31, 2004 | Graham
Green Left Weekly vows to keep Howard in power
October 30, 2004 | Unknown
Reclaiming the Night
With the concept of Reclaim the Night (RTN) first emerging in the late 1970s, it has become an annual opportunity for Brisbane women to protest against the violence which confines and damages their lives.
A couple of banners flourished during last night’s rally exclaimed, “Expecting to get respect” and “Silence is not the answer”.
Although the number of participants fluctuates each year, 2004’s RTN managed to attract a reasonable turn out of around two hundred and fifty, and featured such mainstays as singers, fire-twirlers and an “altercation” between a feisty young feminist (Hi Lucy!) and a male socialist she felt was “being arrogant (trying) to dominate our space”.
Lucy’s minor melee recalls ideological conflicts that have dogged RTN since its inception, including whether men should be allowed to be involved or only offer support from the sidelines. Her identification as a “queer” who believes in “radical love” would put her at odds with some lesbian separatists who attended.
Unfortunately, such differences of opinion, even if healthy for any movement, probably fail to make the event appealing to women who are not politically active.
In any instance, some women, such as my co-worker Leonie, were not aware that it is held in Brisbane, while my former colleague, Melanie, had not heard of it at all.
For those on Speakers’ Corner, issues like violence inflicted on indigenous women, family law reform, rape as a “terrorist” act and a recent legal action in Melbourne in which a man successfully claimed provocation to diminish his accountability for the death of his wife were important.
“Men”, claimed the speaker who raised the Victorian case, “are socially supported in their use of violence”.
That controversial trial may serve to illustrate some of the more complex issues surrounding incidents of spousal murder, even whilst acknowledging that women are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators and have wrongly borne responsibility for the behaviour of men.
Was, for example, the articulated opposition to the plea and the light sentence imposed no different to the attitudes female defendants with a similar justification have put up with for years? That is, was it reverse sexism?
Even if others may disagree, speeches have never been RTN’s strong point, and, paradoxically since empowerment is one of its goals, they felt more debilitating than strengthening to at least one woman I know who experienced domestic violence and abuse as a child.
One of the more interesting aspects of RTN is its pagan-like feel, with lanterns, dancing and women adorned with painted messages or t-shirts emblazoned with stars and moons.
When a recent conversation addressed the issue of why “Reclaim” is in the title even though women probably never had the “Night”, my friend June suggested that it harks back to a mythological time.
With this in mind, the ‘feminine’ creativity on display in King George Square stands in contrast to the city’s infrastructure, which surrounded marchers as they made their way from the Square to West End.
Those big buildings and endless shops could be argued to represent the ‘masculine’ world of repressing the imagination in favour of a weekly wage and consumerism.
An element of goddess worship was injected with the presence of a multi-coloured papier-mâché woman, who was held aloft by a small group and seemed to inspire a kind of reverential awe, not the least for the time it would have taken to make her.
June, who has never been to RTN, was not far off the mark when she, “…imagined that there would be candles and singing…sandals, noisy anklets and lots of the colour purple”.
Although RTN is not without its political and promotional problems, it remains an important way for women to make a statement against the violence that limits and harms their lives.
Darlene can be contacted at darlene@onlineopinion.com.au or go to http://darlenetaylor.blogspot.com
October 28, 2004 | Graham
Roosternomics
Congratulations to Wayne Swan on winning the Shadow Treasurer’s position. I’ve never admired his grasp of economics, but frequently been awe-struck by his political skills, including the use of the strategic non-sequitur. I am sure that “Jobs not GST” was one of Wayne’s inventions, which illustrates both my points.
No matter; the job of Shadow Treasurer is about politics, not economics, and Swan will be a ruthless and dangerous opponent for Peter Costello, particularly as the “miracle” economy is likely to cool dramatically some time before the next election.
Not only is Swan the master of the non-sequitur, but he has a knack for inventing alternative realities which the press then takes seriously. His claim that the government was delaying its mid-year budget review because “Peter Costello is trying to renege on his election promises and slither away from commitments that he gave during the campaign” appears to fall into that category. It might be imaginary, but if anything does go wrong with the economy, plenty of Australians will become susceptible to parallel universes, so it is a dangerous skill for Swan to have.
Another of Swan’s skills is the endless repetition of the same phrase. This is one that he shares with his predecessor, Simon Crean. It is a little ironic that the man dubbed a “rooster” by Latham because of his opposition to Crean, is so much like Crean.
Being like Crean is an advantage. While it was conventional wisdom that Simon was unelectable as Labor leader, I agree with the assessment of Brian Loughnane, Liberal Federal Director, that “For all his faults Simon Crean was a persistent and potent carrier of Labor’s message. Although it is not the conventional wisdom, I was worried by just how well Simon would have campaigned.” (Not that I agree with everything that Loughnane said in that interview, a lot of it was self-serving.)
I think Crean would have done better for a number of reasons. The first is that elections are rarely about leadership, and if they are, then the incumbent will often receive an advantage. If Crean had been leader the campaign would have had to have been about issues not personalities. It would also have focussed on a limited set of propositions. With no expectation that Labor would win, but with Labor carrying the right messages, it could have got much closer than it did, maybe even won.
Afterall, the conventional wisdom said that Bob Carr could not, and did not deserve to, beat Nick Greiner, nor Steve Bracks Jeff Kennett, nor Rob Borbidge Wayne Goss, nor Jim Soorley Sallyanne Atkinson; yet each of them did. Labor’s failure last election was more to run a messianic Whitlamesque campaign, than it was to lack economic credibility, in the process turning a lot of parliamentary roosters into feather dusters.
The Swan Rooster has shown that it has phoenix genes and has survived, and now prospered, after the conflagration. For it to succeed in this iteration, and for Labor to do well off its back, it has to remember that it’s politics, not the economy, that counts…and to keep being a little like Simon Crean.
October 24, 2004 | Graham
Crean decision illustrates why the electorate didn’t trust Latham
I’m agnostic as to whether Simon Crean should have stayed on the front-bench or not. What I do have strong views about is the way in which his front-bench position was saved. It illustrates many of the reasons why the electorate didn’t have the confidence to vote for Mark Latham and Labor. I deliberately twin the man and the organisation, because the underlying reasons not just for the 2004 loss, but the 2001 one as well, are corporate.
Electors like what they hear Labor saying, but they have no confidence in its ability to deliver. In 2001 the critical issue for a key group of voters was refugees. Beazley was making the right noises, but many of his backbench weren’t. Electors didn’t trust the party to stick to its policy if it was elected.
This last election the electorate’s lack of knowledge and experience of Mark Latham amplified these concerns. The issues may have been more economic, but the underlying concerns were the same. They were to do with the leader’s ability to enforce policy decisions and his team’s ability and willingness to back them.
Those themes of indecision, disunity, disloyalty, weakness and incompetence play again in the Crean decision. Crean was turned down for a front-bench position by his own faction, despite Latham’s clear wish to have him there – disunity, disloyalty, incompetence and plain bloody-mindedness. Then there was a proposal for the independents to give him one of their positions – indecision, weakness and incompetence. Finally the impasse was resolved by simply expanding the number of frontbench positions – yet more incompetence, weakness and incompetence.
Of all the possible solutions to the problem probably the worst was expanding the size of the cabinet. It is the “every child player wins a prize” model of political leadership which is unlikely to be appealing to electors worried about mortgage repayments. What would Latham do if faced by a tough economic decision? Go for the easy option so as not to upset anyone? Are interest rates susceptible to the easiest option?
I can just hear the government working up its lines for the first sitting week of the new parliament – “If you can’t govern your own party, how can you govern the country? If you can’t manage your party, how can you manage the economy?”. I can also here the Labor factions working up their own special pleadings, conscious that here they have a “leader” who is not game to say no.
So Latham goes into this sitting of parliament likely to be squeezed from both sides. No wonder a number of other erstwhile frontbenchers have decided to stand aside – better to be a spectator this next quarter than a player.
October 23, 2004 | Unknown
Shutting Up Shop: The Office – The Christmas Specials
The final episodes of the mock documentary The Office plumb the depths of despair, but ultimately celebrate the importance of having people in our lives who accept us for who we are.
Emerging at a time when many comedies were pursuing the lazy path of sending up other shows, The Office’s perceptive, if somewhat brutal; take on the employees of a paper merchant’s firm was welcome, even when we could see our worst traits mirrored in characters such as the insufferable David Brent (Ricky Gervais) and risk-averse Tim Canterbury (Tim Freeman), who will never leave the position he loathes to return to university.
After series two finished with Brent almost out of a job and receptionist Dawn Tinsley planning a new life overseas, these latest instalments reveal nobody has moved on, whether they have remained at Wernham Hogg or not.
With Brent ‘retrenched’ from the middle management role that gave him an identity and a captive audience, we now see him struggling to establish himself as an “entertainer” following his turn as the “boss from hell”.
During the day he sells cleaning and personal hygiene products.
“Can I ask you something”, Brent questions a client who is mortified at being filmed, “who does your tampons?”
Even if Brent’s level of self-awareness is low, he seems to realise his new life is not great since he spends a lot of time at his former workplace trying to recreate what he believes he once had.
“You don’t like it ’cause I’m popular; it was snatched away from me, you don’t like me coming back because it reminds (you)”, he says to his enemy, Neil Godwin, who became area manager after Brent failed a physical.
Neil, who is played by the conventionally handsome Patrick Baladi, comes across as a tad snide and insecure in these episodes.
While we always sensed it, we finally get a real chance to see Brent’s loneliness, depression and anger, which he medicates with alcohol and exaggerated merriment.
There is a scene in The Bedsitter from The Very Best of Hancock, also recently released on DVD, in which the anti-hero looks sadly out a window before resuming a dialogue with himself. Similarly, Brent’s life is interspersed with images of isolation, including when he is seen drinking coffee in a restaurant alone.
Though we know those in The Office are responsible for their fate because they have settled for less, most could empathise with Tim as he endures the incessant ramblings of his obnoxious colleague, Anne, or recalls his “feelings” for Dawn, who rejected him twice and then flew to Florida with her long-standing, yet incompatible, partner, Lee.
Even though Brent’s life is in disarray at the end of episode one of the finale, when Dawn slides her engagement ring down her finger before putting it back in place, the audience is given hope Tim’s persistence may pay off (since it has yet to screen on free-to-air, I will not give too much away).
The writers’ cynicism about modern celebrity culture and how it rewards just for being on the idiot box doing bugger all is very much in evidence. Sharing the stage with Brent at a particularly awful appearance at a club are a D-lister from Big Brother and an actor who stars in commercials for a bank.
“Who are you, what have you been on before, nothing”, Brent barks at a woman who fails to recognise him, or be impressed by his ill-conceived impersonation of Austin Powers.
Other special moments are when the never tactful Keith gives Tim advice in the lunchroom about women, Gareth’s militaristic management style (“…I use discipline. In a war situation, if you want your platoon to go…with you to certain death…it’s a direct order, “come with me” and they’ll go, “yes, he’s got good leadership skills, let’s all go with him to our certain death”) and Brent’s blind dates, during which he is at worst and near the conclusion, his best.
As is the case with most really good comedies, there are tears mixed with the laughter. However, the last two episodes of The Office give us something to be optimistic and joyful about.
October 17, 2004 | Graham
Howard isn’t about to drop his clutch
Back in the days when most cars were manual, we’d talk about “dropping the clutch”. In fact, this was the opposite of what you would do. “Dropping the clutch” meant pushing the accelerator to the floor and engaging the clutch quickly. Your foot, and the clutch pedal, went up, while the clutch moved horizontally – neither “dropped”.
The term had force because there was a sense of something dropping under the car when you did it, but nothing actually succumbed to gravity.
The effect of dropping the clutch was that your wheels spinned, and you then went off with the appearance of great speed in clouds of vulcanic smoke. It upset parents and looked good, and it impressed girls. These are three things that I suspect John Howard has never cared about. He’s more intent on arriving in one piece.
There has been a lot of hysteria about “Howard unbound”, the retro-Promethean who, now that he controls the Senate, will destroy the world as we know it. Howard, so the myth goes, will drop the clutch on reform, and you won’t see him for a cloud of sulphurous dust consigning us all to hell.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Queensland politics demonstrates that having the numbers doesn’t allow governments to ignore public opinion, or suggest that they want to. Both the Goss and Beattie governments have baluked at significant law reforms because they fear they might upset conservative constituencies.
While the Senate does provide a sudden brake on governments, it’s not certain that this is beneficial, or necessary. I tend to think that it is, but it is quite possible that while some governments may need it, others may behave no worse without it.
John Howard learnt his politics at a time just after Gough Whitlam demonstrated the folly of rushing ahead with reform, and during a period when Malcolm Fraser is popularly supposed to have wasted control of the senate by failing to introduce necessary reform. He won’t want to fall into either trap.
Helen Coonan’s declaration that Telstra will be sold later rather than sooner is a sign that reform will occur steadily. The National Party also looks set to fill the vacuum on this issue left by the impotence of the formal opposition. Some Liberal backbenchers may also see some pressure points they can exploit.
When John Howard eventually leaves office, Australia will be a different place from what it is now, but it won’t change quickly, and it will be negotiated with the opponents of change. In crying wolf now, the opponents of change are actually helping to marginalise themselves, just as they did during the election with their accusations of dishonesty.
October 16, 2004 | Unknown
The ALP: A Fraction Too Much Factionalism?
Not unlike someone whose romantic advances have been spurned, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) is currently giving itself a tough time thinking it is not good enough for the object of its affections.
Of course, the ALP’s woes come not just from itself, but also from those it pursued and what they expect from a relationship (that is for another blog piece).
The party, who is probably at home eating ice-cream and listening to Leonard Cohen records, should stop asking the Australian people out or take a long look at itself after being rejected four times in a row.
One aspect of Labor’s character many find unattractive is its inability to go out without its “mates”.
Factionalism featured in two of former Senator John Black’s eight election errors made by the party, which he recently outlined in The Courier-Mail.
Any girl who has ever done a Cleo quiz knows anything that appears twice is important enough to be near the top of your “to-do” list, right behind getting a Brazilian and buying a bikini to show said wax off.
As Black argued, “the factional selection of candidates (meant) Labor continued to select (those) who were not wanted by the electorate”.
In girly magazine terms, this signifies they picked contenders you would not want to be caught dead at the beach with sans a big hat and sunglasses just because they hang around the group that gets the numbers.
Fancy being able to knock around with uncool kids like the Ludwigs and still be popular, if not liked.
A problem with Black’s thesis is that the Liberal Party of Australia’s Queensland Division is notoriously nutty factionally, and, with all due respect, some of their aspirants were more handsome than great (for example, Ross Vasta).
Nevertheless, perhaps lesser lights are not so important when there is effective direction from the leader and the federal organisation.
A few days ago one ex-Labor member used Crikey.com.au to send out a call to “modernise” the party. While given to generalisation and insulting when agreeing with the inference unionists are unskilled, “disillusioned” was right to identify the detrimental impact of “factional” types.
“Yes, indeed it’s the economy all you stupid…hacks that are getting ready to destroy this once great party”, he or she forcefully, if inarticulately, claimed.
Given ALP factions are based on the anachronistic left/right split, it is not surprising the party has trouble stating positions suitable to a supposedly post-ideological world.
Although these groups appear to be inevitable when people get together in pursuit of a goal, their harmful effects were recognised by John Button after the last election in his Beyond Belief: What Future for Labor?
According to Button, “Labor’s politicians have nearly all been to factional finishing school but not many have been to the school of hard knocks”.
Imagine the advertisement, “learn how to dress appallingly and hate superbly: factional finishing school, where a knife in the back is just a pre-selection contest away”.
Button compared factional kingpins to Hannibal Lecter, to which I wrote a letter in response saying something like he should not offend Lecter like that.
Alas, for those interested in reducing the power of factions, the influence of these gangs starts early. Once again, Laborites wasted energy running against each other in the University of Queensland student union elections.
“Disillusioned” could possibly focus on advocating for the dismantling of Young Labor in the quest for reform, however, since she or he is no longer a member it is difficult to see how he or she can succeed where others who remain in the fold have failed.
October 08, 2004 | Graham
Congratulations Sydney Morning Herald
It’s good to see the Sydney Morning Herald catching up with the times. In fact, it is doing more than that. With its decision not to recommend a vote for either party in today’s editorial, it is leading.
It says
We do not rely on the argument that our readers are clever enough to determine their own voting preferences, although that is our firm belief. Our rationale is one of self-interest and, for this, we do not apologise. We rank as our most valued asset our reputation for integrity with readers. Independence from the political contest is vital to that. Only by being truly nonpartisan can we be seen to be genuinely unshackled in our determination to pursue truth and to root out wrongdoing.
When I say that it is leading, it is still a follower. I don’t expect that the editor of the SMH has ever paid much, if any, attention to On Line Opinion, but when we set it up we decided not to have editorials at all. This was done because we believed that our readers were not only capable of making up their own minds, but that it was an insult to their dignity for us as an organisation to try to tell them how to think.
In eschewing this as the major reason for its change of policy, the SMH leaves open the issue of how newspapers can campaign for issues and against people and parties and still maintain their integrity, independence and impartiality.
I’d suggest in the light of this decision that they review their entire policy of having editorials altogether, but that they also need to address the issue of how they can both take sides and be impartial. On Line Opinion uses a system of internal competition to do this. Perhaps the SMH could use this as one possible model for revitalising their journalism. They could start by publishing more and saner Margo Kingstons; putting them in print as well as, or in preference to, on the web; and with a broad range of political views.
October 03, 2004 | Unknown
Launching a New Government
After failing to convince security staff I was a serious journalist and/or a Liberal, I spent last Sunday at the anti-Howard rally outside the party’s campaign launch.
Let me tell you, it is not easy covering a demonstration hostile to conservatives when dressed in a frock Princess Di would have worn before her divorce, while carrying a bag with the Prime Minister’s face on it and a cardigan inside in case it got cold.
Unsurprisingly, Labor was not fussy about who it let in to its launch on Wednesday, so in I went with my notebook, biro, homemade media pass and membership card.
As a member, I was spared from sitting next to dodgy press types and instead found myself surrounded by representatives of the esteemed political class, including former leader Paul Keating, former leader Kim Beazley and current Senator Bob McMullan, who seemed impressed with my modest claim of being “just an ordinary branch member”.
I am glad nobody told him I write for a blog or he undoubtedly would have been less impressed.
In between playing spot the pollie, I paid a bit of attention to what was happening on stage, particularly when lovely Ms Lacy featured in what might have been a world first; an Australian wife recommending her husband.
Janine uttered words like “admirable” and “genuine” to describe her partner and the audience fell in love, albeit with her and not necessarily with her old man.
If I was one of those nutty feminists, I might have wondered why male politicians need to have their humanity confirmed by spouses, but instead I was enthralled, and hoped one day to have a Mark Latham of my own.
Mind you, mine better be from a better part of town, because I do not want to have to go to the western suburbs of Sydney to visit my mother-in-law.
Although deeply hurt by the Liberals’ rejection a few days earlier and even if I have been an ALP hack since 1998, I resolved to adhere to my usual impartiality.
I can thus advise that Labor’s intention to index pensions four times a year and introduce income splitting are the best initiatives ever introduced in the history of humankind.
Like most political commentators I consider myself neutral, but I have to say that totally radical (in a good way) were plans to create 20 000 more places respectively at universities and TAFE colleges, to redirect funding away from schools that do not need it and to protect Medicare.
“Mr Howard is waging war on Medicare. I want to build a fortress around it”, said Latham and as somebody without private health insurance I could only agree.
Peter Garrett, who was sitting one person away and is twice my height and half my weight, clapped enthusiastically when the ALP’s proposals to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and protect the Daintree were announced.
“That is so cool”, I would have remarked to him if I was not too shy to talk to a rock-and-roll star.
By the time Latham informed us that “Janine and the boys…have made me a better man”, I was glad I never got in to the Liberal launch to hear the Prime Minister go on about giving tools a kit or something or rather.
Even though I am not keen to be seen to be giving support to one party or another, I feel compelled to give the nearly last word to the upcoming Prime Minister:
“My fellow Australians, Australia needs, and needs now, a new government”.
Right on, Mark.
October 02, 2004 | Unknown
The Federal Election and Seniors: An Analysis by Mabel and Violet
It has been such a big campaign week for oldies that some of us are spending the weekend dozing over Lucy Turnbull’s letter about Malcolm, while the melodic sounds of Frenzal Rhomb’s “Rock against Howard” compilation plays in the background.
According to Mabel, my best friend since Queen Victoria’s coronation, that whippersnapper with the potty mouth claims over-75s will be guaranteed a hospital bed if he forms government after the election on 9 October.
“Holy”, I yelled at Mabel, but before I could say shit she told me in a disapproving tone that Labor will also bring in a national dental program.
“If you can’t afford to get your teeth fixed, you can’t afford to buy the sort of food that requires you have teeth”, Mabel reasoned.
Positively, if Latham wins we will get the opportunity to bitch about a young woman for at least the next three years.
“She’s no Mrs Howard, Violet, and who was looking after the boys why she was gallivanting around in that tiny white outfit at the launch”.
Mabel, who never misses a chance to tell everybody she is a self-funded retiree who deserves more than pensioners who wasted their money on drugs, Bob Dylan records and communist party memberships rather than saving it, said she will be giving her vote to “John” this time since he is offering $200 annually to “contributing citizens” because they don’t get the perks pensioners do.
It’s not for me to remind Mabel, my best friend since the Boer War, that the only time she hasn’t voted Liberal was in 1972 in protest at the gown Mrs McMahon wore to the White House the previous year.
“She’s no Mrs Howard, Violet, and he seems a bit, well, unusual”, she muttered darkly at the time and ticked the box for the Democratic Labor Party (DLP).
Mabel’s not impressed Mrs Howard’s husband is offering $100 a year to pensioners to help them with phone bills and other “luxuries”, but since her disdain for Medicare Gold transcends her dislike for “John’s oldies fund” her vote won’t be going to a fading party this year.
“Except the Nationals in the Senate”, she curtly reminded me.
“Yes, they’re led by that sexy John Anderson”, I roared lustily, “now there’s a pair of cowboy boots I’d like to find under my guaranteed hospital bed if Latham wins”.
“Most inappropriate”, Mabel snapped and fell asleep.
“Mmmm, so Malcolm, or so Mrs Malcolm maintains, always puts the toilet seat down and is a dab hand at foreplay”, I said to myself.
“I better not tell Mabel, she might think he is a bit, well, unusual”.