George Bush has been having some problems negotiating an extension of his Patriot Act through the US Senate. In the latest manouevres the Act has been extended, but just for one month.
Bush’s problem has been obvious for a while, and should have informed part of the debate on Australia’s new terrorism laws. Afterall, if the US, which experienced the 9/11 attack, is having second thoughts about draconian legislation, then why aren’t we?
Perhaps the reason it has been missed in Australia is the annual Christmas lock-down with the “B” teams manning media outlets and politicians and their staff AWOL or indulging in silly season stunts like Warren Truss’s Air-Traffic Agreement with Santa.

I’ve been on a beach holiday, watching the Cronulla debate with bemused interest, but with my brain too disengaged to want to blog. Now I’m back from the traditional mystical Australian Christmas ritual, and I could have been on sabbatical for ten years, rather than just a week. Almost a decade on from the One Nation/Pauline Hanson “uprising” and it appears that hardly anyone’s learnt anything. Certainly the debate has barely advanced
Cronulla is of a piece with Hanson’s surprise election in 1996 as the member for a formerly safe Labor seat. The political movement which she subsequently formed went on to be briefly the second largest party in Queensland with almost 24% of the vote in the 1998 state election. Hansonism’s ascent wasn’t violent, and it attracted a different demographic to the Cronulla riot, but it came from the same root cause – a belief that some groups were being unjustly favoured by government policy.
For sure and certain, some of the people who voted for Hanson were racist, but the movement was not racist per se. It did have strong elements of xenophobia, but xenophobia is not racism.
Certainly there were some racists at Cronulla the Sunday before last, and the police arrested a few sad right-wing supremacist types last weekend (whose antics were so Keystone Cops you’d almost think they wanted to get caught). And while the slogans and some of the language were racist, they were an inept expression of what the rioters were really on about.
The essence of racism is unjust discrimination against a person because of perceived characteristics of the racial group to which they belong. So it is racist to refuse to employ someone simply because they are Lebanese, or Anglo. It is not racist to refuse to employ a Lebanese or Anglo because of their behaviour.
I would wager that within the estimated group of 5,000 Anglos there was a large percentage, certainly more than 50%, who have had friendly relations with individuals of Lebanese heritage. I’d also guess that the percentage of those who would be happy to work alongside someone of Lebanese heritage, or have them as a member of their family or social group, would be even higher. Indeed, The Sunday Mail quoted a nightclub owner saying that many of the bouncers in the area were of Lebanese extraction.
Racism is about excluding people from your group who are of a different racial group. The Cronulla riots were about Lebanese immigrants deliberately excluding themselves from the mainstream and going out of their way to antagonise it. While the Cronulla mob expressed itself by scape-goating individuals who looked Lebanese, they were essentially demanding that the Lebanese gangs behave themselves and try to fit in.
A perverse and muddled way to express inclusiveness, but nevertheless, that is what most of the rioters were doing. “We don’t mind you coming here, but please sign-up for the Australian project. We want to get on, but if you don’t want to get on, then watch-out,” is what they were saying. That is not racism.
I said earlier that “hardly anyone’s learnt anything”. One group that has is the federal ALP. Their reaction to Hanson in the 90s was partly responsible for her popularity. This time Labor has been much more restrained. In this morning’s papers Beazley avoided the issue of racism altogether, preferring to talk about “segregation” a word which has resonances which will be reassuring to both sides of the argument.

As with large software projects, the only way to test Howard’s new laws is to run them in real time.
If I went about threatening men of other cultural backgrounds because I took offense at their dress, manners, or choice of facial hair and headress, I would expect (even before the new laws were passed) to be arrested for racial/ethnic/religious/whatever intolerance and general lack of civility. Yet I desist.
The terms intolerance and lack of civility are the keys here, the rest is blather. I don’t care if it is lack of education, testosterone fuelled identification with black US gangsta rap, or psychopathic jihad – in the 21st century our only hope is civility, tolerance and non-violence. (If I imagine a bumper sticker saying ‘death to non-pacifists’, does that make me seditious or just a clown? My self-image is at stake.)
Even after more than 30 years, I remember my embarassment and anger when harassed as a young woman in the US, France, Italy, Lebanon and (yes) Australia. Sometimes it was laughable, as when the fellow who’d followed me into my apartment in Beirut, (where my husband was cooking dinner) told me weeks later on the street ‘You are not so beautiful.’ Harassment and unwelcome approaches to young women may be accepted in some parts of the world, but knowing it was a ‘cultural norm’ did not make it any more pleasant to have your crotch grabbed while trying to enjoy the Mediterranean. Australians are not immune from bad behaviour, stalking, etc. But we expect the law to support the victim and punish the perp. Religion is, or should be, a side issue.
My niece in Cronulla says name calling (‘Aussie slut’ isn’t very imaginative)on the beach has been common for many years. Shouldn’t these people have been arrested? A police officer on the radio said they have been told to hold back – is this political correctness gone beserk?
Another relative from ‘the Shire’ says that Aussies are harassed when they go to areas where Muslims are using the beach. They do not want anyone near their women and they chase them away with insults and threats. If this is true, it is surely grounds for arresting them.
And which group was convicted of racially inspired rape?
Now certain ‘community leaders’ are advocating separate areas on the beach. This is just apartheid.
If we hold any values in common at all, surely it is the right to be left alone and have one’s culture respected. Aussie chicks wear bikinis and flaunt their bodies at the first sign of Spring. This is as it should be, for us.
Yet it has also been reported on the radio that at least one Muslim Immam has actively encouraged their young men to harass non-Muslim women. If this is correct, the Imman should be in prison. It is illegal, and was already illegal before the passing of the new laws.
Likewise, of course, anyone found making molotov cocktails for ‘protection’, which has led to the arrest of some Cronulla men. A good spell in jail might improve their manners.
I would not expect to successfully lobby the Saudi government for the right to wear short sleeved shirts or drive in that kingdom. Such female behaviour is not right – for them. I choose to stay away.
Apartheid, de facto or otherwise, can only feed the current problems, never solve them. We have already failed in upholding our legal rights by turning a blind eye to the harassment that preceeded recent events. They should have been nipped in the bud – keep your mouth shut! is a simple injunction.
Hoons of all kinds need to be forcibly cooled down – and our free-wheeling, flesh-loving and above all tolerant and civilised society should be affirmed. Is that not what we understand by the rule of law? And is that not OUR Australian culture?
Piers Akerman, in the Sunday Telegraph, offers a complementary view. Why should mainstream Aussie society show tolerance and support for behaviour that is itself aimed at promoting intolerance? Give me a break. No, better yet, protect me. That’s what the police are there for.

It has long been my belief that one of the duties of the Opposition is to defend the supremacy of the Parliament in our system of Government.
That is why the statement yesterday by Lawrence Springborg that the former Health Minister, Gordon Nuttall, should be charged before the law courts with an offence arising from his evidence to the Estimates Committee is so profoundly wrong and disappointing.
I know of no precedent in the Westminster system for the course of action he has embraced, but I know of any number of precedents for Parliament itself dealing with Members who breach its privilege, by deliberately misleading the House, or by conduct unbecoming of a Member – even when that conduct is unrelated to his Parliamentary office.
The most obvious is that of the Right Honourable John Profumo, CBE, who was forced to resign as Minister for War in the Harold Macmillan Government because he lied to the House over his infamous relationship with Christine Keeler.
(It is interesting that John Profumo, 88, has totally rehabilitated himself through 40 years of outstanding community service, and was awarded the CBE for his community work – and was one of the comparatively select guests at Lady Thatcher’s 80th birthday party. The Blair’s made it, Michael Heseltine didn’t).
But back to the issue at hand. In 1969, the NSW Legislative Council dismissed from Parliament a Country Party MLC, Alexander Ewan Armstrong, after it was claimed he had engaged in the procuring of false evidence in relation to divorce proceedings he was involved in.
Even though the matter was unrelated to the performance of his Parliamentary duties, the House resolved that he had disgraced his Office, and he was unceremoniously expelled as a result. At the time NSW had a Liberal-Country Party Government but that made no difference as there was bi-partisan support for his expulsion.
Interestingly, Armstrong challenged his expulsion before the Courts, and the right of the House to expel him was upheld by the NSW Court of Appeal.
But there are any number of other instances where Parliaments following the Westminster model have exercised the right to sit in judgement on a Member who has deliberately misled the House, or engaged in illegal or improper behaviour.
The role of the Opposition under the Westminster system is to guard against intrusion by the Executive, and even by entities such as Crime and Misconduct Commissions, into the sovereign role of the Parliament.
Some oppositions discharge this responsibility better than others.
One would think that, in a unicameral legislature, let alone one where the Government’s majority is overwhelming, the Opposition would be more vigilant and vigorous than ever in protecting the sovereignty of Parliament.
That sovereignty is being eroded, in many jurisdictions, by bodies such as the CMC, and New South Wales’s ICAC, either intentionally or not.
The proper place for the CMC Report in relation to Gordon Nuttall to be debated, and determined, is in the Parliament of Queensland. The Parliament has adequate powers to impose a range of penalties if it elects to do so – ranging from a reprimand to expulsion.
The State Liberal Leader has rightly taken a more cautious approach than his Coalition “partner”.
He is wise to do so. The Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition would be wise to follow him.
The supremacy of Parliament needs to be guarded carefully. Over the years it has been eroded by Governments of all persuasions.
This is an occasion to re-assert that supremacy, and for the House alone to judge the conduct of the Honourable Member for Sandgate.

I met Rob Gerard once. We bought an investment property in a development where Gerard Industries was one of the tenants. I ended up doing some negotations with Gerard over a lease. There is no doubt that a man who involved himself in a small matter (in the context of the size of his operation) of a few hundred thousand dollars, would have been intimately involved in the tax planning of his company.
This makes the Treasurer’s justification that Gerard can remain on the Reserve Bank Board because he had no “personal” tax problems, laughable. The corporate veil may act to shield from legal liability but it cannot turn an unethical act into an ethical one.
But then, it is likely that the Treasurer, or if not him, some other key decision maker, knew the full extent of Gerard’s problems. If the government hadn’t known, then its response to the revelation of Gerard Industries’ tax problems would have been quite different. It wouldn’t have immediately gone on the front-foot to defend him, but would have spent time assessing the new information, and most likely pressured him to stand aside, whilst it was half-hearted in its defence. A bit like the way John Howard dealt with John Brogden.
This would have been the case, even though Gerard had donated over one million dollars to the Liberal Party.
No doubt the Federal Government will justify this instance of cronyism on the basis that the ALP did the same thing with the board when they were in power. And they did. Why else, for example, was Janet Holmes a Court put there? She might have been rich, but it was sexually transmitted wealth generated by the share speculation of her husband Robert, not her own doing. Her own business dealings have been less than successful, but she was a high profile Labor Party supporter.
They might also say that the real decisions are made by the Governor of the Reserve Bank and his employees, so it doesn’t really matter who is on the board. There is truth in both these charges, which raises the whole question as to whether the board in fact discharges its duty as a board, and if it doesn’t, why it is there.
The deeper issue here is whether the corporate structure of the Reserve Bank is really appropriate for its task. The members of the board who are not professional bankers or economists are Jillian Broadbent, Robert Gerard, Frank Lowy, Donald McGauchie and Hugh Morgan. They have the numbers over the professionals who are Ian McFarlane, Glenn Stevens, Ken Henry and Warwick McKibben. When you examine their business interests all have massive positions in movements in interest rates because of how they might affect their businesses. Not the sort of people you want running a bank.
Contrast our board with the board of the US Federal Reserve. They are all drawn from the professions and banking. They serve once-only 14 year terms. They have to be nominated by the President and approved by Congress. And it appears to be a full-time job.
Labor and Liberal have made a hash out of our Reserve Bank Board, even though the results under McFarlane have been some of the best that we have seen. While it is less politicised under Howard than under Keating (remember Keating’s boast to have it in his pocket), it is still too politicised for a country that has every right to claim to be first world.
For the moment the RBA scandal has diverted attention from the public relations problems with the IR legislation, but it has the potential to reinforce them. One way of demonstrating that this government isn’t just in the business of protecting its mates would be to sin bin Gerard, and announce a complete change in the way that the RBA conducts itself, moving it closer to the US model.
If Costello has the ticker to be leader, he will do something like this. Costellos is in the best position to fix it because he is the responsible minister. He also needs to do something to prove his credentials and cure his image problem. Fix a problem like this with some innovative thinking and tough judgements against Liberal “mates” and he can simultaneously appeal to the battlers, who are suspicious of him, as well as the elites, who are also suspicious of him.
Should the government not do anything about Gerard it will add to the impression that favours and preferment can be bought from it. While that might be good for fundraising, it’s bad for the country.