Message in a Bottle

Christmas is a funny time of year – where we’re encouraged to feel good about ourselves and others through the spending of money, where the quiet tension between the religious and the humanist strangely mirrors the awkwardness around the extended-family Christmas table and where Australians actually pretend to care about yachting.  Well, almost.  Coming hard on the heels of the Sandy Hook School shootings, chemical weapon attacks in Syria and George Pell’s Christmas blessing, this year’s pagan harvest festival feels a little like a fragile mirage. An unreal moment of stillness amidst this storm of inhumanity.  And, yet, from an expected place comes a quiet message of reassurance, maybe even hope.  Not hope on any grand or global scale, but the kind of personal hope that comes from the realisation that someone out there in a position of influence shares your thoughts and your concerns.

The US Ambassador to Australia, Jeffrey Bleich, addressed the National Press Club in Canberra this month.  His speech was remarkable for its positivity, some would even say optimism.  Bleich, of course, is a diplomat and optimism is his job. But it was when he was asked about the US elections that things got interesting.  He made the point that during the election campaign a total of $2bn was spent by both sides to basically tell Americans how pathetic and untrustworthy the other side was. 

Bleich contrasted this with a conversation he had had with the CEO of Burger King.  Bleich asked, why, in all the years of intense competition, had Burger King or McDonalds never run an advertisement attacking the quality of food or service of the other side?  The Burger King CEO’s response was emphatic: first rule of business, never kill the category.  Looked at in this way, Bleich positions US election marketing as a $2bn advertising campaign to get people to disengage from politics and to extinguish faith in the political leadership.  It was a campaign that not only failed to consider whether it would “kill the category”, but sort to hold a party on its grave. A mentality where: the victor of scorched earth is still the victor ... and without recognition that such victory only persists until the wind blows the whole kingdom away. 

Jeff Bleich - he's not the messiah, he's just a sensible man

Bleich went further still in his analysis and critique of destructive politics and discourse.  This negative narrative constructed by politicians, parties and the media, he argued, loosened the connection between people and political debate.  It de-values democracy by fostering a broad apathy – why vote for anyone, they’re all as bad as each other.  As if this weren’t concerning enough, this loss of trust, he continued, went deeper to destabilise the economy.  Why would people and companies invest in a society with such deplorable leadership?  Here was the sharp message for those who think that negative political discourse and this language of opposition (shared by governments and oppositions alike) is just semantics.  Economic development is not a rational force, it is suckled upon confidence and trust … and that trust begins with those to whom we have given the authority to tend the helm.  Undermine this trust and the voter becomes apathetic about voting, the investor about investing, the employer about employing and the consumer about consuming.

Nek minnit, Wilson Tuckey be PM

Now, I’m sure Bleich was not suggesting that we have government without accountability or criticism.  The difference is between the constructive and the destructive.  Today, we in Australia, like our American cousins, suffer with a destructive public discourse.  On both sides of politics, ideas are replaced with antagonism, vision with viciousness, and all speak with the one tongue: the language of opposition.  While Bleich was too much the diplomat to bring the point home, clearly his purpose for raising it in this context was to convey a gentle warning to the leaders of the Australian public discourse. Just be careful where you step, ye who enter here.  The test is now ours to find someone, somewhere willing to remove this message from its bottle and speak its words aloud.  And in the season of hope, anything is possible … [fades to static]

Speaking Human

Tragedies reveal a lot.  They reveal the best and the worst of us.  The Sandy Hook School shooting is no exception.  It provides us with glimpses of murderous insanity, tear-bringing heroism and, unfortunately, the deranged fearfulness of those who hold the right to bear arms above the rights of children.  Events like this shine a light on the full-range of human expression; going beyond the dramatic to also expose the dull, cultivated greyness of much political speech.  For Australians, the Sandy Hook tragedy has again reminded us that there’s something not quite right with our Julia.

I remember once being in the audience to a speech by a member of the Canberra press gallery.  At the end of the presentation, an earnest, bearded man stood and asked the journalist, “Why do you think Julia Gillard fails to connect with the Australian people?”  He wasn’t asking why Labor’s policy platform was not engaging the imagination of the electorate or even whether Gillard was a competent politician. His inquiry was focussed on Julia the person.  With unpausing wit, the journalist replied, “In person, Julia Gillard is a warm and engaging person.  But, put a microphone in front of her and she talks to you like you have a learning disability.”  It’s a great line and it brought the house down, because every single person in that room – regardless of their political affiliation – knew exactly what this journalist meant.  Over media-trained and over scripted, he concluded.  Poorly scripted too, I would add.  But it is more than a technical-delivery issue, it speaks to a larger absence: the absence of a person behind the title and position.  In human terms, the lights are on but nobody’s home.  In the crucible of tragedy, this is made painfully stark.

Gillard’s statement with regard to the Sandy Hook massacre reads:

“Today we stand by the people of America on their day of loss and grief. Today is a truly shocking day for Americans. Twenty children have died; a number of adults have died. This is a day that is breaking America’s heart and has brought the American President to tears.

As Prime Minister I get to visit a lot of primary schools, and they’re places of hope and joy and excitement, young kids going about their day, learning, being with their mates. It is almost beyond comprehension such a happy place could be reduced to a place of death and terror, but that is what we have seen today. Our heartfelt sympathies go to those families who have lost a child, to those families who have lost a loved one, to those families who are now trying to counsel their young child who has been witness to such shocking scenes and will be so distressed as a result.

Alongside the loss of children, we’ve seen the loss of some very brave teachers. It’s a time to remind ourselves just how precious a thing it is that so many people devote their lives to the care of children and even in the most extreme circumstances think about the children in their care first. They are some very brave Americans, and we know we are home too to some very great teachers.

This is a very difficult day. It’s a day on which Australians will be thinking of our friends in America and sharing their grief and their sense of loss.”

Even putting aside its delivery, let’s consider the language used in this statement.  It’s a language of self-imposed autism – a superficial mimicry of humanity.  Rather than show us a real and personal emotional response, Gillard spends her opening lines distancing herself from the tragedy.  This is clearly something that has happened to, and is only affecting, other people on the other side of the world: “Today is a truly shocking day for Americans”.  In adopting this opening position, Gillard not only loses the opportunity to make herself human, but she actually disconnects herself from many, many Australians.  Just about every parent in Australia does not see Sandy Hook as a tragedy happening to other people.  This is an act of violence against all children everywhere.  I can assure you, Gillard, every feeling parent in this country was holding their children tighter that night.  The only thing that dried the tears in our eyes was the disbelief and exasperation at the empty words of our PM.  Words that reinforced that she doesn’t get us.  She is not one of us.  In fact, Gillard describes herself as a visitor in our world, “As Prime Minister, I get to visit a lot of primary schools.”  Thanks for stopping by.

The Tourist

So bereft of emotion is Gillard that she has to steal sentiment from Barack Obama.  Rather than try to engage us with an emotion of her own, she seeks to connect with us by stealing Obama’s words and his tears: “This is a day that is breaking America’s heart and has brought the American President to tears”.  Emotion by facsimile and association.

But it gets worse.

Gillard does not just fail to connect on any personal level, she includes this bizarre and incongruent comment, “We know we are home too to some very great teachers.”  In this context – where we have so clearly been told that this event isn’t about us – these words appear as calculated political pandering, a sickening play to a political base.  Again, the message is clear: if Gillard can’t relate to parents and children, at least she can relate to the Unions.

So pale has been Gillard’s performance that the human high-ground has been stolen away in one tweet by former merchant banker, Malcolm Turnbull.  When Rupert Murdoch bemoaned, on twitter, about America’s failure to embrace gun control, Turnbull replied astutely: “I suspect they will find the courage when Fox News enthusiastically campaigns for it”.  This is a response of emotion and conviction, where the risks of publicly belittling a media mogul where not even brought into the equation. It is the kind of response of which Gillard is incapable.  Rather, our PM is left drowning in convoluted sentences and mannequin-like sincerity.

Why is it, then, that we have a PM who is warm in person, but so un-engaging in the media?  Is it just poor media training?  Certainly, as a start, Gillard needs to sack whichever PR amateur writes her statements.  But there’s more to it than that.  Politics is a confidence game and, rather than a self-assured leader comfortable in her own skin, we have a lame-duck PM.  We have a leader who is tolerated by her own Party and who has been granted not support or faith but only borrowed time.  She has no personal mandate or agenda and, because of this, her voice, once human, has been hollowed out by uncertainty and second guesses.  Thus, we end up with this faux statesman-like persona that tries desperately to sound every bit the worldly leader, but comes off like a bad impersonator.  The lights are on but nobody’s home.  With no human anchor, Gillard’s political voice becomes as the vaguely irritating buzzing of a fridge, somewhere in the background of our lives.  It does not speak to us and, therefore, it can never speak for us … [fades to static]

Down the Rabbit Hole

In my day job we have a saying: a fish rots from the head down.  What we mean is that the values and behaviours of those at the top of an organisation will inevitably establish a powerful and pervasive culture.  If those values and behaviours are unethical, duplicitous or even criminal, then it's only a matter of time before that cancer infects the whole body.  Good people will flee and the morally-bankrupt remainder will appoint people just like them.  I've seen this process destory once proud organisations and break the will of honest employees.  It is vile and destructive.

In this blog, I have tried to focus on the Australian political discourse - its language and logic. For me, the debate's the thing.  The critique presented has attempted to be a study of what is said, who said it and why, rather than attacking either Labor Party or Liberal Party as institutions per se.  Now, I certainly don't claim impartiality, so naturally my criticism has tended to be more (but not exclusively) directed to one side of politics.  But, I have resisted the temptation to simply "have a go" at either the Labor Party or Liberal Party as organisations and structures of social power.  Until now.

Politics is a rough business, that's nature of the beast.  It is certainly not a game for the thin-skinned.  However, in recent days, the Australian Liberal Party has put the final nail in the coffin its moral integrity.  A rot that began with the Children Overboard Incident in 2001, and was incubated in the shadows by Godwin Grech, has reached its conclusion in the tail-end of 2012.  The Liberal Party has clearly become an organisation of compromised morality, an organisation characterised by a vicious win-at-all-costs mentality inflamed by a petulant attitude toward being in opposition and losing hold of its god-given right to rule.

The final evidence of the Liberal's fall into a culture of entrenched sleaze lays in both Justice Rares ruling on the Ashby vs Slipper sexual harrassment case and the Party's response to the ruling and its implications.

Justice Rares comments are condemning in and of themselves.  His judgement on the case brought against former Speaker of the House, Peter Slipper, by his then advisor, James Ashby, states:

"I have reached the firm conclusion that Mr Ashby’s predominant purpose for bringing these proceedings was to pursue a political attack against Mr Slipper ... I am satisfied that these proceedings are an abuse of the process of the Court. The originating application was used by Mr Ashby for the predominant purpose of causing significant public, reputational and political damage to Mr Slipper ... To allow these proceedings to remain in the Court would bring the administration of justice into disrepute among right-thinking people and would be manifestly unfair to Mr Slipper ... Mr Ashby’s pre-dominant purpose in bringing the proceedings was not a proper one ... Mr Ashby acted in combination with Ms Doane and Mr Brough when commencing the proceedings in order to advance the interests of the LNP and Mr Brough"

How might we expect an organisation (any organisation) to respond to a judgement in a Court of Law that its employees and/or representatives had deliberately misused the justice system to destroy a person in order for their personal and professional gain? 

It is reasonable to expect an expression of regret, maybe an apology, and an undertaking to ascertain the origins of such unconscionable behaviour and to root it out.  Remember, this is not the Labor Party making accusations and these are not the allegations of some union hack - this is a ruling by a Federal Court Judge, having review the evidence before him. This ruling deserves a respectful, considered and contrite response.  An ethical organisation would send a clear message that such behaviour has no place in its ranks and would seek to divest itself of those who threaten to poison its culture.  The Liberal Party has done just the opposite and this is its great failing.  A fundamental failure of institutional integrity.

Individuals within any organisation will always do dumb and questionable things. How the organisation responds defines its moral compass.  The Liberal's narrative on the Justice Rares ruling shows a compass firmly pointed toward the sewer.  Not once has the Party looked at itself in the mirror.  Its responses have been glib and entirely about the Labor Party's reaction.  The Government, we are told, is "hyperventilating".  Maybe they are and maybe they're aren't.  But this is not about the Labor Party, this is all and only about the character of the Liberal Party.  What has been revealed is a character of absence ... an absence of responsibility, an absence of integrity, an absence of self-reflection and an absence of fairness.  Behaviour tolerated is behaviour condoned. The Liberal's response to the Slipper ruling sends an implicit, yet clear, message: suck it up, this is how we play the game now.  Sometimes what is not said speaks loudest and truest.

Within the broader Liberal Party, there are many good people who genuinely believe in social justice and a politics of principles.  Today they must feel isolated and vulnerable - tied to rocks as a poisonous tide rises around them.  The Party has failed these members just as it has failed us all in leading us deeper into the sewers of its political morality.  While a University politics professor once warned me to never read too much into events and scandals, one can't help but feel this is a crisis point for Australian politics.  A point to stop and ask ourselves: how far down this squalid rabbit-hole do we want to go?  Sadly, it seems that the answer is in from the Libs ... [fades to static] 

Into the Vortex

When I started this blog, my intention was to try and produce one post per week.  Nothing too demanding on myself or anyone who may care to follow my self-indulgent ramblings. But there was one thing I hadn’t counted on – the demented superficiality and dangerous stupidity of Australian public discourse and its contributors.  The material is un-ending, almost overwhelming.  Every day a failure of leadership, direction, intelligence and wit.  And today is only Tuesday...

This morning’s exercise in idiocy comes from dedicated non-thinker, Senator Barnaby Joyce, who made this comment in regard to climate change and our response to this threat:

''It is an indulgent and irrelevant debate because, even if climate change turns out to exist one day, we will have absolutely no impact on it whatsoever … we really should have bigger fish to fry than this one.''

Like many of Joyce’s comments, this statement is just a tangled knot of inanity that seems too hard and too pointless to untie. And yet to let such a comment pass without consequence, to let it be tacitly accepted through silence and allowed to spread its festering influence, is unbearable.  Stupidity of this scale must be challenged and exposed.  A manager of mine once said, “As a leader, if you set your own standards at 10 out of 10, your people will come in at 8 out of 10.  Set your standards at 6 out of 10 and you’ve got big problems.”  If the leaders of public discourse are permitted to drive the quality of thought around critical debates down to this standard, it only serves to create a broader environment of ignorance, easy answers, denial and gut reaction. This type of a public discourse creates the excuse for an assertive apathy and proud nescience – where not only do I not care or think, but I attack you for being “indulgent” enough to do so.

I am not an animal...

Let us assume, just for a moment, that the science around climate change is questionable.  As Liberal Senator Busby says, “I know eminent scientists have one view but I know other eminent scientists - usually ones who have retired and are no longer reliant on government grants - have a totally different view.”  Don’t know about you, but I often look for expert scientific guidance from scientists not actively working in a particular field.  Anyway, let’s run with it.

Sen Bushby: I have consulted Copernicus by ouija board and he says, "Don't panic!"

Even if we accept that climate change is contested, the potential ramifications of the phenomenon would mean that, from a purely risk management perspective, there is more value and importance in debating a response to climate change than discussing boat people, union slush funds, misogyny, the NBN and even Kate Middleton.  Good rational, economic management would insist that we plan for a reliable climate change response and put protections in place today, even if we do debate the scale and scope of impact.  The risks are simply too high to do nothing. Ask the insurance companies what they think about climate change ... there’s a reason they are ahead of the curve on corporate action in this area.

To argue that we shouldn’t discuss climate change because there is nothing we can do about it is, to put it nicely, disingenuous.  But, the key is not to look for rhyme or reason in Joyce’s comment – if for no other reason than you’ll be sucked into a cretinous vortex – but to look to its sub-text. The underlying premise here is that the future be forfeit to the current political agenda.  Climate change only affects the lives and livelihood of every person on Earth, but we have issues of political immediacy and expediency to deal with, issues that may affect Barnaby’s re-election, issues pertinent to one man’s agenda.  These, seemingly, are our “bigger fish to fry”.  If we allow any long-term or strategic issue confronting our nation to be supplanted by the frivolous to-ing and fro-ing of here and now politics, then we will all join Barnaby in the mad spiral to oblivion.  Short-term, narrow agenda politics is the politics of destruction.  Socially, economically and intellectually it fails to prepare us for the future, leaving us standing like a lost Amazonian tribe as the bulldozers move closer ... [fades to static]



The Rogues Gallery

The other night, I came home from work to find my wife busily preparing our son’s dinner.  Running the risk of a wooden spoon to the back of the nonce, I nagged at her to take a break and look at a photo on my phone.  She looked at me suspiciously.  I knew what she was thinking: this will either be something funny, something gross that he thinks is funny or something expensive he’s bought for himself.  Our marriage hung on this little image on my phone’s screen...

In fact, it was none of the above.  It was a simple photo of a vulnerable looking African-American man, a little grey around the temple, sitting alone in an empty bus and looking pensively out the window. He had the fragility of someone tired from carrying a great weight.  The art deco chrome and green leather interior of the vehicle, meanwhile, suggested that this was no ordinary modern mass-transit commuter coach.

“Wow,” my wife said, “That’s Barrack Obama.  Where is he?”

I replied, “He’s visiting a museum in the US.  That bus is the bus that Rosa Parks was travelling on the day she was told to give up her seat for a white person and get down the back.  That is probably the very seat she was sitting in.”

I watched my wife intently.  I knew she had read the Rosa Parks biography.  Her eyes welled. I could see the hairs on her arms and neck stand up as if to give an ovation.  She was speechless, locked in a gaze with this extraordinary image and its bitter-sweet symbolism.  My marriage was safe, for now.

After the emotion had subsided, I got to thinking: why don’t we ever see such inspirational images of Australian politicians?  We have our share of photographers, emotive issues, struggles and publicity-hungry pollies in this country.  Surely, there must be some defining images of critical political moments?

I did some research.

What I found was that so much of political imagery is defined by conflict or is contrived, poorly.  There is an absence of “beautiful moments” in our political visual library – those images that perfectly capture the human characteristics of a leader, a struggle or a movement; images that speak to something beneath the surface.  Having realised this gap, it is impossible to stop teasing at it (like trying to stop scratching a mosquito bite you’ve just noticed).  I kept looking and kept asking: why does this gap exist?  Inexorably, I found myself draw to the conclusion that perhaps it’s because there is nothing there to see – nothing beneath the surface.  Perhaps we suffer from a hollow politics that signifies nothing beyond itself.  A politics devoid of inspiration. Conflict or the contrived.

I researched further and further. Slowly, there started to emerge images that had some pulse-quickening story of their own.  Maybe I was wrong.  Maybe Australian politics could inspire.  The evidence speaks for itself...

Of course, when you talk of emotive issues in Australian politics, one man and one moment looms larger than all.  Gough.  The beautiful indignity and defiance, and the trail-blazing silver quiff, captured for all time:

But some images transcend your personal preferences (political or otherwise).  No other image starts my heart-to-beating more than this classic:

Other images speak to us because they reveal the human-side of those from whom we are too often distanced.  The following image, to me, captures the dignity and poise of our most humanist of political leaders:

Images that reveal tragedy also capture my imagination ... and there is nothing more tragic than the figure of the fly helplessly caught in the web:

Sometimes we’re just inspired by the reassurance of our place in the world.  Even today, many Australians would take comfort and strength from this striking image, as they discuss the problems with foreigners, the blacks and the gays:

But, finally, my search came to end.  I had found it.  An image that captures the depth and significance of Australian politics.  An image that speaks with a voice at once human and majestic in its ability to inspire. The beautiful moment that reminds us that politics does matter and that it can bring out the best in us all .... [fades to static]



The Discretionary People

It was a perfect storm.  An early Friday morning start after a late night working the previous evening.  John Lennon’s Gimme Some Truth had just kicked in on the earphones. The person sitting next to me on the tram clearly had a different definition of “personal space” than I did.  I had picked up the wrong keys when leaving the house and was wondering how I was going to get into the office when I finally got to work.  In short, I had my grump on.

Then I read it.  An article in The Age that, at first, seemed hopeful and maybe even positive, entitled as it was: Victoria Urged to Negotiate on NDIS.  Perhaps, I thought, there is a momentum for good gathering behind the NDIS.  Given the principles of the scheme – as discussed in my previous post, A Poverty of Will – this would be something to kick start my day.  Reaffirm my faith in humanity on a Friday morning at the end of a long week.

It didn’t go well for me.  Basically, the article conveyed a subtext of party political game playing.  Hmmm.  No reaffirmation there.  Then I got to the final line of the article.  It was a comment from Joe Hockey.  The statement said:

The Coalition would introduce ''a full NDIS when [it could] afford it'', requiring a ''strong surplus''.

I let fly with a mouthful of expletives that Deadwood lord of profane, Al Swearengen, would have been proud of.  This had two immediate effects: first, I felt better and, second, it resolved the issue of my overly close neighbour, who got up and moved.  I went looking for a can of peaches to celebrate.

 Open the fucking canned peaches, Dan!

There is a vile deception in Hockey’s statement.  Firstly, it paints the NDIS as a cost – a net drain – on the Australian economy and community.  This is in spite of the report from the Productivity Commission – an organisation not known for a leftist, humanist agenda – that argues for long-term economic benefit in such a scheme.  Indeed, in August 2011, the Productivity Commission report in disability care and support stated:

Governments could not feasibly do absolutely nothing. They would need to patch up their systems to arrest the vicious cycle produced by systems in crisis. In effect, all governments face future liabilities with their current unstable systems. The implication of this is that the upfront fiscal costs, while significant, are partly offset by eliminating the hidden future liabilities of the current system. Moreover, from an economic perspective, the benefits of the NDIS will exceed the costs.

In this context, it becomes plain that Hockey is using the myth of affordability to drive an ideological agenda, or maybe even worse, a crude party political agenda on this serious human issue.  Given both the societal and economic benefits of the NDIS, the question is not, “Can we afford to do this?”  The question is, “Can we afford not to do this?”  Like the hopeless magician whose hidden playing cards fall out the arms of his dusty jacket, Hockey’s vulgar illusion deserves to crumble before a sniggering audience.

But the NDIS is more than an economic program.  It is intrinsically bound to a fulfilment of the human rights of disabled people.  The Coalition, however, is seeking to position the NDIS as a discretionary spend.  Something we really should do, if we ever have the money.  A bit like that trip to Fiji we promise ourselves every year.  Or maybe buying a ski boat.  If the economics of the Coalition’s stance on the NDIS are laughable, its ethics should send one dry-retching.  A society is best judged by how it treats its vulnerable.  Hockey and Co would have us believe that human rights and empowerment for the disabled are a luxury – and a luxury that sits behind middle class welfare in order of priority.  As though the rights of disabled people are something to be traded off against the gravitas of a budget surplus.  If a government does not exist to invest in a scheme like this (where a return is predicted in any event), why does it exist at all?  As Al Swearengen himself might say, if that’s your version of a civil society, “Then take your civilization and get the fuck out of here!”

Pleeeeease, turn me into a real little boy

I wonder how many people with a disability read Mr Hockey's comments and think: if only my disability was discretionary, if only it would go away until I could afford better care and support? If the Coalition does come to power and if they do shelve the NDIS on financial grounds, we shall all have to save our pennies as a nation, so maybe one day we can buy back our soul ... [fades to static]

A Poverty of Will

7am Monday morning is no time to be at a work function.  And, yet, yesterday morning I found myself sitting down at a business breakfast and doing that “networking” thing that makes you wish you had a proper job, like a sewerage inspector or the guy inside the padded suit at an attack dog training school.  I am not a morning person.

My reason for being there was that the breakfast at least supported a good cause – the International Day for People with a Disability.  Our guest speaker was none other than the Hon Bill Shorten MP, Minister for Most Things.  Big Bill, when he wasn’t being interrupted by the asinine MC, spoke about the origins and philosophy behind the National Disability Insurance Scheme.  Even through the blur of the early morning fuzz, through the degrading triviality of the MC and through the gumminess of cold toast, Big Bill’s message cut through.  That message was, in so many words, that rights without power are just words on a page.  That is, you can enshrine people’s rights in legislation and policies, but unless those people have the power to assert their rights then all we are doing is wasting trees and ink.  The point behind the NDIS was to give disabled people power as a consumer and, in doing so, help to make them visible and influential.  The Scheme is merely the spark that lights the fuse.  It is self-determination that will, ultimately, blow open the walls that separate people with a disability from the cloisters of power and influence.

 

As I reflected on the philosophy of the NDIS, my mind immediately turned back to a documentary on the Howard Government I had been watching not 12 hours previous.  The documentary, Liberal Rule, touched on the way in which the Howard Government had dealt with the group in society who, perhaps more than any other, suffers from systemic discrimination, disempowerment, poverty and marginalisation – our Indigenous community.  The contrast between the Labor Party’s vision for disabled Australians and Howard’s approach to Indigenous disadvantage could not be more stark.  Where the NDIS seeks to empower and make visible the struggles of those with a disability, Little Johnnie throughout his time in government sought to do the complete opposite for Indigenous Australians.  The Howard Government’s disempowerment of our Indigenous community was both symbolic – by refusing to fully acknowledge the hurt of the Stolen Generations through apology – and, ultimately, concrete – through the “Intervention”.  Self-determination was supplanted with state-determination over how Indigenous people should feel and live.  In this sleight of hand, Howard’s policies traced a direct philosophical lineage back to those who had thought it was in the best interests of Indigenous children to be removed from their families to be raised by good, clean Christians.  They were, in short, simply the next generation in the genealogy of disempowerment.

We're from the government and we're here to help...



Now, I don’t claim to have the fix for Indigenous disadvantage in this country – but I do know that systemic issues require solutions from both within and without, and that the imposition of a code of behaviour on a group rarely delivers change or success.  This post, however, is not about arguing for a particular policy position.  What is of interest here is: why is it that we can deliver a (hopefully) powerful and constructive policy to address disadvantage in one group within society, but not another?  Why is it that the Gillard Government can dedicate billions of dollars toward helping disabled persons and the main questions being asked are: is that enough and will all the money promised actually be available?  While, conversely, we still having debates around what to do on the “Indigenous issue” and the very validity of “pouring in” further money.  What does this reveal?

At one level, it reveals the complexity of resolving Indigenous disadvantage.  But complexity is only a problem where there is an absence of ideas and/or will.  While I don’t work in this field, I have still met with many people – both Indigenous and non-Indigenous – who have ideas to address this issue.  Some of those ideas are outstanding, others are execrable, providing only self-aggrandisement for white liberals while doing nothing for (and maybe even harming) those they claim to help.  Nonetheless, as a society, we don’t seem to suffer from a poverty of ideas. Rather, the weakness lays in the will to do what’s required.  A weakness borne of racism. 

There are no votes in Indigenous health and education.  Such things are, not only, beyond the experience of average Australians, they are beyond the care of too many.  Even today, the Australian experience too often begins in 1788, with Indigenous society positioned as some kind of pre-historic mise en scene to our triumphant narrative of progress and equality in the face of adversity.  Lost in the background, the Indigenous experience only comes to the fore to get in the way and disrupt our comfortable perspective.

At our best, we are a wonderfully compassionate and inventive nation – the NDIS, if it lives up to the promise, could be evidence of this.  At our worst, we are hateful and bigoted.  The real shame is that too many of us sit in that middle ground of apathy and self-interest. While for a glorious moment I sat listening to Big Bill, feeling great about being an Australian and leading the world on the empowerment of people with a disability (and we should be proud of this), the sickening realisation returns.  The realisation that there is still an implicit definition in Australian society that it is not acceptable to help some people in a constructive manner that deals with underlying power structures, that we are not yet ready as a nation to tackle this convenient racism toward our Indigenous citizens and that we are not willing to let the rights of our Indigenous people be more than words on paper.  There is hope that the reforms we are seeing in the disability space mark a maturation in our thinking toward disadvantage – a sign of things to come – but it is also hard to escape the fear that it carries no greater, lasting cultural significance than a drunken Balinese henna tattoo ... [fades to static]

Take It Outside

There’s a certain look lawyers get in their eyes when they think they’ve got someone on the ropes – that moment when the path to victory becomes very clear to them and there’s a sense that momentum will inevitably carry them over the line.  It’s a mix of grand self-assuredness, anticipation, aggression and a deep, deep appreciation of just how clever they are.  Yesterday that look was all over the face of Deputy Opposition Leader, and former lawyer, Julie Bishop as she outlined the Opposition’s case against the Prime Minister with regard to the AWU “slush fund” matter.  At least, that’s what I think she was doing...

You see it was actually hard to clarify whether Bishop was articulating points of evidence or raising matters that needed further investigation.  Was she making claims or just asking questions?  Sometimes it seemed even Jules wasn’t sure and the media at the press conference appeared equally baffled as they tried, repeatedly, to disentangle substantiated allegation from simply pondering out loud.  Bishop was walking the very fine line that exists between defamation and conveying the right message often enough so that everyone just starts to believe it.  As the delightful Rose McGowan’s character in the movie Scream points out, “If you hear that Richard Gere gerbil story often enough, you start to believe it’s true.”

The slippery and largely in-substantive way the Opposition has handled this line of inquiry is a disappointment.  It is not a disappointment because they are playing the person rather than the ball.  It is a disappointment because personal integrity does matter in our public leaders and, therefore, inquiries like this also matter ... but the Opposition have fluffed their lines.  Rather diligently research and then prosecute a considered case, they have gone for the “throw enough shit and some might stick” approach.  What we might call, The Gerbilist Approach.

Hey, leave me out of this!

The issue of playing personal politics is always a vexed one.  It is critical that we know and understand the ethics and values of those who hold personal office.  The “AWU affair” – or perhaps we should call it “AWU-gate” – may have happened 20 years ago, but that does not mean its reach is not current.  Unethical behaviour, especially illegal behaviour, makes one beholden to others – to the co-conspirators, the silent witnesses and the suspicious.  Failures of integrity cast a long shadow. Therefore, we deserve to know if our public leaders are compromised in any way.  After all, all public offices are only held in trust.

This is not to say that an isolated error of judgment, or the indiscretions of youth, should ever disqualify someone from public life. But we should be able to make an informed judgment about a candidate and the origin of their positions on issues.  In fact, many of us appreciate a leader who has made mistakes – it renders them human.  That they admit to and learn from these mistakes may indeed make them a better leader.  Many of the role models we hold up as great leaders were on their second time around, having recovered from previous failures of judgement and integrity.

In WWI, his pride led many Australians to die on the beaches at Gallipoli.  In WWII, he fought them on the beaches to save a nation.

Even if we accept that we have a right to understand what shackles of the past our leaders are carrying, it is still possible to explore these issues in the wrong way.  The Gerbilist Approach serves no-one – it seeks not the truth, but only to entertain and distract through scandal.  It is the 21^st century equivalent of the public flogging of criminals, but with lower standards of justice.  And why would any right thinking person seek public office when this is the potential reward?  In the long run, we all suffer for it.

I’m confident that right now the majority of Australians would believe that our Prime Minister was involved in something dodgy.  I’m equally confident that most could not articulate what she is supposed to have done, but the mud of allegation has stuck and dried.  The Opposition, therefore, has achieved what they set out to do.  Whether it is true, whether it actually benefits the people of Australia is, of course, irrelevant.  They are winning the game and can sense the momentum of the kill.  We, meanwhile, are left with a system of public justice and accountability the integrity of which is as questionable as those whom it seeks to investigate.  We have a system of slander, where a system of considered inquiry is needed and owed.  And that’s the disappointment in all this ... [fades to static]



Playing Faust

Last weekend I was lucky enough to see Radiohead perform live.  I’ll resist the fan-boy gush and simply say that the performance was mesmerising.  While they played some of the old classics, unfortunately, they didn’t play one of my all-time favourites: the quietly haunting, All I Need.  One of the things I love above this song – indeed, it has become inseparable from the song itself – is the film clip that was produced for it as part of MTV’s EXIT Campaign to end child exploitation.  The clip shows the parallel stories of an average kid in a Western country, contrasted with the life of a child living and working in poverty in a third world country.  There is a beautifully simple arc to the story, which I won’t give away but rather encourage you to check out the clip:

http://youtu.be/DV1hQSt2hSE

The piece highlights a paradox that I’ve always felt to be true: that it’s the people in the worst poverty, suffering the worst oppression, that seem to work the hardest (for the smallest reward, if any).  However, just seven short days after the Radiohead concert, I would like to thank Tony Abbott for opening my eyes.  It seems I was deceived.  Those arriving to our country to flee poverty, violence, threat and fear are all idle scroungers.  According to Little Tony, they are characterised to a man, woman and child by a “something for nothing mindset”.  Thank you, Tony.  As a friend of mine might put it: I think I just got cancer from listening to you.

Now, of course, among those who seek asylum in our country there will be those who seek to exploit our welfare system.  Exactly as there are those among our community today who do the same thing.  But, equally, there will be those – the vast majority – who want nothing more than to find a job and raise their families with the freedom and opportunity that we so often take for granted.  Indeed, it might do us all well to reflect on how hard we actually work and how much we sacrifice to buy our luxury goods, compared with the sacrifices and efforts of those who make them for us.

But this gross caricature of asylum seekers was only one of Abbott’s assertion used to justify a proposed reduction in Australia’s refugee intake.  Little Tony was also quick to point out that many refugees arrive, wait for it, illegally.  That reducing overall refugee intake decreases illegal arrivals defies logic.  Experience would suggest that creating even an impression of scarcity leads people to panic.  The great irony is that, by reducing our refugee intake, we may in fact increase the boats heading south from Indonesia – with refugees starting to behave something like bogans at a stocktake sale.  But Abbott’s focus on the “illegals” conveniently overlooks the very nature of asylum.  To seek asylum is not an act borne of civility, it is an act borne of desperation and fear.

Abbott’s primary thesis though was that Australia simply cannot afford to take 20,000 refugees per year.  This is despite a considerable body of research showing that the net effect of migration is that of economic benefit.  This is despite Australia reputedly suffering from a labour shortage – a crisis so severe that some of our more nefarious employers are even seeking to bring in their own boat people.  This is despite the previous Liberal Government introducing middle class welfare to encourage Australians to breed – produce one for Mum, one for Dad and one for the country, we were told.  This is despite the fact that we hold ourselves out to be a fair country.

There is no logic or justification to Abbott’s comments.  They are nothing more than repugnant political posturing. It making these statements, Tony Abbott has become the hollow man of Australian politics.  Form without substance.  An empty surface of arrogant privilege.  There is nothing human beating there.

Beyond what it says about him as a person, there is a more troubling aspect to this direction from Abbott.  He has now established a pact with a fickle and dangerous demon: the lowest common denominator in us all.  He has joined hands with the voracious id of society.

The problem with a race to the bottom is how far do you go before you stop?  In a previous post, Chasing Ordinary, I discussed comments from Liberal MP, Malcolm Turnbull.  Turnbull suggested that his party would not vary too far from the middle ground.  However, the danger of the narrative like the one espoused by Abbott is that, if left to fester, it has to power to shift the middle ground.  It is difficult to ask people to be compassionate – especially, if they perceive it might cost them something.  It is easy to spread the virus of fear, a virus once released cannot be controlled.  Abbott’s comments open the door to hatred.  They validate more extreme views and stir the corner of darkness that exits within us all.  In this environment, the moderate person is the one who is less extreme than the worst of what we are.

It is easy to make carcinogenic statements like Little Tony’s when in opposition.  In government, you have to own the human consequences of your decisions.  But, once in government (which seems inevitable), will Abbott be able to pull back on the reigns in this dizzying race to the bottom?  Will his seemingly seductive demon allow him such humanity?  Abbott has forgotten that this beast, in its brutal simplicity, is demanding and unforgiving.  Its appetite can only by whet, never satisfied.  This may prove to be his tragedy.  And ours … [fades to static]

Our Ghosts May Be Heard

Every year, myself and a couple of mates get together for our annual road trip.  It's an institution of indulgence - we eat too much, drink too much, make too much noise and laugh out loud.  This year, we headed off to country Victoria to take in some fishing and sample the night life.  It was while standing in a local pub on a Saturday night, listening to a surprisingly good band, that we noticed something strange - a creeping sense that while our presence was being tolerated, we weren't exactly welcomed here.  There was a tension in the stares from the thick-necked blokes hovering around the bar.  We were familiar with this scene though.  So, rather than push our luck, we simply grabbed a late night hotdog and took the party back to the caravan park ... no doubt to the annoyance of our neighbours.

Our experience equates to the diet coke of intolerance - being starred at hardly rates as oppression.  However, it does highlight that very real antagonism to "other" that exists in the (anglo) Australian culture.  An antagonism that has been writ large in the story of the alleged abuse of some French tourists on a bus in my home town of Melbourne.

Anglo-Australian culture is rooted in  identity crisis.  We arrived as foreigners in a foreign and hostile land.  From the very beginning we were at odds with our surroundings. Scared and isolated, we fought hard to maintain our Anglo identity in spite of the reality of our place in the world.  We classified our indigenous people as fauna.  We sent boys off to die in brutal wars that did not directly impact us.  We introduced policies to keep ourselves white.  We refused to engage with our Asian neighbours.  For years, we did all these things to retain a perverse Anglo heritage and position.  

Like the frontier sentry on the eve of battle, we developed a neurotic intolerance to anything we are not, anything that would threaten our position as a great European outpost, anything that would contaminate and cast uncertainty on our self-image.  We told ourselves: we are not Asian, we are not aboriginal, we are not Muslim ... and we clearly aren't French either.  These things are "the other" and we were united, like wide-eyed pioneers huddled around the camp fire, by our fear and resentment of them.  It's Us or Them - only one can prevail.

While, no doubt, our sense of identity has matured as a nation, the ghosts of our fear and isolation can still be heard.  They can be heard in our histrionics about turning the boats around.  They can be heard in the words of the whitest man in the country seeking to define who is an "authentic" aboriginal, as opposed to one raised in captivity presumably.  They can be heard in a bus load of thugs yelling, "Speak English or die!" They can be heard in institutionalised discrimination against single mothers.  It's Us or Them, they whisper.

Perhaps I am being unfair to the Australia psyche.  Maybe fear of "the other" is a human condition - there's plenty of psychological research to suggest this is the case.  But should we accept this status?  Surely, it is incumbent upon us as a society - if not a species - to evolve?  But just as you can't pick yourself up by your shoe laces, we can't move forward as a society without leadership from those who define our social narrative.  And here, of course, lays our essential failing: that we tolerate, and thereby tacitly endorse, a narrative of conflict, threat and anxiety.

Even in the commentary from some of those raging against the actions of those troglodytes on that bus, we see the philosophy of divisiveness and vilification.  Take for example the profoundly stupid words of The Age crime reporter, John Silvester: 

I cannot recall hearing anyone I know under 25 making a racist or homophobic comment. I know plenty twice that age who still think The Black and White Minstrel Show was cutting-edge culture.

John Silvester (above) - social commentator par excellence

Apart from being delusional, unhelpful and possibly the dumbest thing I've heard outside an Adam Sandler film, here we again see the media setting up divisions where none existed and none are necessary. It's Us or Them ... and They are everywhere we turn.  

Make no mistake, our yobs on that bus were not alone... [fades to static]

What's Left?

Like most 1 year olds, my little boy’s choice of toys is both amusing and a little deflating.  Having just bought him a life-size plush dog to play with, it was with mixed emotions that I watched him ignore it in favour of an empty cornflakes box.  While I was busy wondering how long I’ll be able to get away with giving him empty boxes for Xmas, my attention was snapped back as the box went skidding across the floor in a fit of temper.  With some developmental significance that is entirely lost on me, his favourite game at the moment is putting stuff in other stuff.  In this case, he had put his toy shovel inside the cornflakes box and could get it back out again. An impressive tantrum ensued.  The arms were flapping and the feet stamping in way that couldn’t help but remind me of Karl Rove (while immediately consoling myself with the fact that my boy is only one and will grow out of this behaviour).

I didn't want those cornflakes anyway!

Being more than just excellent YouTube fodder, Rove’s childish antics on the night of the US elections highlight a deeper point.  As a good friend of mine once put it, “Those tory bastards believe their rightful position is in government.”  When you honestly believe you’ve been born to rule, losing must be such an insult to the natural order that a petulant display of primitive emotion is the only available and appropriate reaction.  It almost makes Rove and the whole Fox News menagerie seem human.  Almost.

In Australia, the centre-right Liberal Party is not as vulgar or aggressive as their Republican colleagues in this attitude. But the belief is still there and permeates much of the media in the form on an ingrained and implicit narrative that the Liberal Party is the party of government and that Labor is nothing but big spending, economically dodgy, hopelessly factionalised and mired in dirty Union politics.  Liberal “believers” see themselves and their party as above politics – a movement of rationality and order.  God bless ‘em. The reality, of course, is that a political party is a political party is a political party (the clue, folks, is in the name).  Even our gracious benefactors in the Liberal Party have shown they are not above making mileage out of drowning children, buying votes or having the occasional public factional hissy fit.

But when you just know you have a god-given right to rule, you have a vested interest in the status quo.  Thus, in the Liberal Party, in among the dusty relics of conservative values, we see strict leadership structures and obedience, and a largely administrative policy base, where efficiency is the watch-word.

This is where the opportunity for the Left exists and where much of the antagonism toward the Gillard government may stem.

If the Right is born to rule, the Left must earn that privilege.  There is little value then in the Left trying to do so solely on a platform of efficiency and “responsible government”. The Right owns these virtues.  Rather, we look to the Left for ideas, change and innovation – a creative humanist agenda with a leadership willing take a risk on the big idea.  At its best, the Right delivers us an efficient world, where we all advance, albeit not in step.  The Left, at its best, makes us want to be fairer and proud in that fairness.  It makes us want to be better – better as individuals and better as a nation.

The Australian Labor Party has a record of this kind of creative humanism, with the introduction of universal healthcare, expansion of higher and vocational education, a re-orientation of our nation away from Europe to embrace our Asian neighbours, a robust social welfare system and more.  Big ideas.  It’s not that Labor owns social justice issues, I’m told there are some bleeding-hearts left in the Liberal camp, it’s that Labor – the Left – are willing to directly affect social issues through a policy agenda of active change from the ground up, rather than the top down.  So the Left gives us Medicare and a better, inclusive education system – building the substrate of social development.  The Right gives us “The Intervention” in Indigenous communities and, before that, The Stolen Generation – policies premised in that innate belief that “we know best”.

And so we come to the Gillard government.  It’s very failing has been to allow big ideas to be transmuted into administrative reform.  On the issue of the environment and climate change, the solution is a new tax.  On the issue of an equitable sharing of wealth from the nation’s mineral resources, the solution is another tax.  On the issue of refugees, the solution is bureaucratic: offshore processing.  On the issue of education, the solution is a website and metrics.  These are not the inspiring and aspirational policies that people look to from the Left.  In fact, they look a little and sound a little like a conservative, administrative agenda ... but this duck don’t quite waddle right and don’t quite quack right.

Lost your pluck?

Now, much that is written here may be unduly influenced by fondness for things passed or even selective memory, but the point remains: by failing to provide an agenda of ideas, a politics of hope and inspiration, the Gillard government has violated our expectations.  It is this violation that has marginalised Labor in the minds of many in our community, even among the “true believers”.  The spite often directed at Gillard is too vicious to be the spite resulting from poor governance (especially when, by global measures, we’re actually doing OK).  It is the spite of a broken promise.  Not just a specific promise, like never introducing a carbon tax, but a larger promise – perhaps reinforced by the fact that Gillard is our first female PM – of fresh ideas to build confidence in ourselves and raise up our view of ourselves. 

The essential promise of the Left is and must be: our ideas are better. If the Left moves to administrate rather than inspire, to a politics of efficiency rather than aspiration, it will be doomed.  It simply can’t play that dry game as well as the Right and, anyway, what reason would we have to vote for them – why go for the hybrid when we already have those who were born to rule in this vein?  Indeed, the cultural legacy of the Howard years is an Australia largely focussed on entitlement and selfishness – a national psyche of demand and gratification.  We need political leadership from the Left to change our view of what is important and what is possible.  We need an agenda of ideas ... [fades to static]